Moony's Tale
by EskLee
Summary: Remus is returning to Hogwarts for the first time since he graduated. Instead of a student, however, he is the professor, and instead of James Potter, it's Harry. This story shows the events of PoA from Remus Lupin's POV.
1. The Marauder's Compartment

**All characters and the plot are J.K. Rowling's. 99.99% of the dialogue in this story is her's as well.**

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Remus arrived on platform 9 ¾ far before any students arrived. He had thought of apparating directly to Hogsmeade, but a letter from Dumbledore saying that the Dementors of Azkaban would be searching the train was enough to convince Remus that he would ride it. He'd be lying if he said he did not want to see the scarlet steam engine once again. After all, it was on one of those cars that he had met the friends who had saved his life.

Kings Cross, to Remus's surprise, had hardly changed. So many muggles were bustling about, and if one kept a careful eye out, one could occasionally see wizards and witches coming from other fractioned platforms. He smiled to himself, remembering just how excited he had been when at the age of eleven he, with his father, had walked through the enchanted brick wall for the first time. The platform was almost completely empty. There were only a few wizards, all of whom were working on the train and were hurriedly preparing for the onslaught of students that was going to arrive in just under an hour.

He walked past the steam engine and to the very last carriage of the train. Remus took a deep breath and sighed happily. He was not expecting to receive the warmest of welcomes at Hogwarts, or certainly not from Severus, but this would be his first proper job since leaving the castle all those years ago. He stepped into the carriage, levitating his trunk to follow behind him. Once inside the carriage, he opened the very last compartment on the train and stepped inside. It looked exactly the same, and while he was sure that many Hogwarts students had sat here since, Remus could not help but feel that it was still his compartment. The Marauders' compartment.

With a flick of his wand, Remus levitated the trunk above his head and onto the luggage compartment. He then sat down next to the window, content to try and sleep as much as possible before arriving at the castle. Last week's full moon had not been a pleasant one. Remus wrapped his cloak around him, fairly confident that the word 'professor' on his trunk would keep away any loud or obnoxious students.

The next thing that Remus became aware of was an absurdly high-pitched and loud noise in the compartment. He knew right away what it was - he was, after all, about to become the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor - but for the sake of his hearing, there was a very good reason why Remus never had them around. What was the point of knowing someone was untrustworthy if you were deaf?  
"Yeah mind you it's a very cheap one." A boy said, answering a question from a girl in the compartment. "It went haywire just as I was tying it Errol's leg to send it to Harry."

Remus lost track of the conversation for a moment. Surely Harry was a rather common name. The odds that his best friend's son was in the exact same compartment that Remus had chosen must be rather laughable. No, it must be someone else. There was no possible way his luck could be that terrible.

"Stick it back in the trunk. Or it will wake him up." another boy said, and though Remus tried to ignore it, he could not deny that the owner of that voice sounded familiar. Soon the sound of the sneaker scope disappeared, and whether or not it was Harry Potter he was sitting next to, Remus was thankful to the boy for thinking of him. Remus listened to the students' conversation only a few moments more before drifting off back to sleep.

He had no idea how long he slept, until he was again woken up by the compartment door being thrown open. Remus cursed his heightened senses, but despite himself, he could not help but listen in to see what this commotion would be.

"Well, look who it is. Potty and the weasel." A new voice said and for a moment he thought perhaps it was time to publicly wake up. He decided to wait. As a student, he had never wanted a teacher to fight his battles.

"I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley." The new voice continued. It sounded so similar to Severus' from when they were students, Remus wondered if he had had a son. "Did your mother die of shock?"

Ah, yes: the Weasleys. He'd read in the Prophet not long ago about their trip to Egypt. Both Arthur and Molly were a few years older than the Marauders, but Remus had found memories of Molly's older brothers from being in the Order. He stopped smiling when he remembered the horrible way in which they had died. From the commotion, he guessed that whatever Weasley child he was sharing a compartment with had stood up in defense of his family's name. Remus snorted, trying not to laugh. It was a very good thing he had decided against waking up. No Weasley he had ever met needed help in a fight. There was a reason every Weasley, as far back as the name could be traced, had been a Gryffindor.

"Who's that?" the insufferable boy said. Remus knew he should not make such assumptions about his to-be students, but he could not help it. The Weasleys had never had much, despite being one of the oldest Wizarding families. They reminded him or himself. Dirt poor, and ostracized for being simply what they were, but still good-hearted and happy people.

"New teacher." Someone else said. "What were you saying, Malfoy?" Now that what name Remus recognized. How many times had they caught Snape following that prefect Lucius Malfoy? And how many times had James and Remus fought him after Hogwarts? Malfoy was not a name easily forgotten when one of them had a nasty habit of shooting killing curses at your best friends just because they were a blood traitor.

"Come on." The Malfoy boy said, and Remus heard the compartment door close. He was no longer amused. Despite all of his trying, Sirius somehow had managed to sour this day. Remus had, over the past twelve years, done everything imaginable to wipe Sirius' existence from his life. There were no more pictures of the four of them resting on his mantlepiece. No letters from Padfoot saved. He wanted no memory of Sirius Black being his good friend. That man was dead. Whoever Sirius Black was now, Loyal Death Eater, proud member of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, the man who had recently escaped from Azkaban, was not someone Remus knew.

He had stopped paying attention to the conversation the students were having. He was no longer enjoying it. Remembering his first time on the train to Hogwarts and meeting his best friends was now soiled with the memory of the one man who had taken all of that from him. Remus nuzzled himself closer to the cold window, willing himself back to sleep and knowing full well that his dreams would be of some nighttime excursion on the Hogwarts grounds. In his dreams, Padfoot was still the big, black, loving dog he had always been.

Then once again Remus was abruptly woken up. This time, however, it was not due to a loud voice, but the jolt of the train stopping. Without opening his eyes, Remus knew that something was not right. Already there was the all too familiar chill forming around him. Then quite suddenly everything was plunged into darkness. Remus opened his eyes and gave them a moment to adjust to the dark. It was in these rare moments that, while not thankful for his affliction, Remus at the very least appreciated the benefits to being a werewolf. He could not see more than the outlines of shapes and people, but it was enough to not feel disoriented.

"What's going on?" the Weasley boy asked, and Remus sat up straight, listening hard.

"Ouch! Ron, that was my foot!" A girl sitting across from him said. The cushion he was sitting on compressed slightly, and Remus became aware that a third person in the compartment was now sitting next to him.

"Do you think we've broken down?" the boy next to him asked. Remus rolled his eyes slightly. Here they were on a train to magical school and yet somehow students thought that a train would break down. Remus sighed; he missed being so young and innocent.

"Don't know" the Weasley boy said as he tried to clear the fog away from the window. Remus was mildly impressed with the children in this compartment. While they were coming to the wrong conclusions, they were at the very least not scared, and trying to find out why this odd occurrence had happened.

"There's something moving out there. I think people are coming aboard," the Weasley boy finished. This caught Remus' attention, and he too looked hard through the glass trying to see dark shapes floating on a darker backdrop. Remus was about to finally speak when the compartment door suddenly opened; Remus pulled out his wand. There was a small commotion, and Remus felt as someone fell onto his feet.

"Sorry, do you know what's going on?" This voice came from below, and despite Remus's excellent night vision he could not see the shape of a boy next to his feet, and though he stuck out his hand, he did not expect the boy to successfully find it. "Ouch! Sorry." The boy said again.

"Hello Neville." The boy next to him said kindly. It was much harder to ignore how similar that voice sounded when there were no other distractions.

"Harry? Is that you? What's happening?" Neville said as he flopped onto the same bench as Harry and Remus were on.

"No idea," Harry said. "Sit down." There was a loud hissing and then a cry of pain before something rather furry jumped onto Remus's lap. Apparently there was also a cat in this compartment.

"I'm going to go and ask the driver what is going on." The girl said, but before Remus could say anything to stop her he heard a thud and two loud squeals of pain.

"Who's that?"

"Who's that?" Remus could not tell the difference between these two voices. Only that one was named Ginny and the other Hermione, from their reactions to one another.

"What are you doing?"

"I was looking for Ron."

"Come in and sit down."

"Not here! I'm here!" Harry said, and Remus, despite how serious this situation should be, smiled. There was another cry of 'Ouch!' before Remus once again felt the shudder of cold. He stood and sat one of the two girls down by the window where he had been sitting moments before.

"Quiet" he said, not realizing until now how hoarse his voice had become. Wanting his wand to still be available for use, Remus decided against using _Lumos_ and opted to light a small fire in the palm of his hand instead. He looked around the compartment. He was right; there were two girls, three boys, and a cat. All of them were looking at him.

"Stay where you are," he said flatly as he approached the door, but it began to open slowly before he could reach it. The effect was immediate. All of the small noises a room full of teenagers made vanished. A cold chilled the air in moments, and Remus could see his breath. Ice formed on all of the glass, and a cloak figure stood in his way. A single greyish, dead-looking hand of the Dementor reached around the door frame as if to push itself inside. Remus held his wand tightly, pointing it at the hidden face of the Dementor.

Then clearly heard in the unnatural silence, Remus listened to the Dementor draw a long, slow endless breath. Remus did not look away from the Dementor, but he sensed the change in demeanor of a few of the teenagers.

"None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go!" he said to the Dementor, not really expecting it to work. The Dementor drew in another breath, and Remus could tell that one of the boys had fallen to the floor. Quietly, with even less than a whisper, Remus said " _Expecto Patronum,"_ and the non-caporal form of his Patronus came shooting out of his wand, hitting the Dementor directly under the hood. The creature shot back and flew away hurriedly back from the compartment. Remus waited until the lights came back on and the train began to move once again before turning around to face the students in the compartment. When he did turn, his heart caught. He was right, someone had fallen onto the floor. It was one of the boys, and the only name that came to his mind was James.

He could only stare, convinced that this must be his friend, somehow back from the dead, but also knowing that that dream, that hope he harbored so desperately, was impossible. One of the girls bent down next to him and said,

"Harry! Harry! Are you alright?" quickly, slapping his face. For a moment, the boy did not stir, but then he groaned, and Remus' brain finally seemed to be catching up. He should have known from the boy's voice, but he had tried to deny it. However, now it was plain as day, and there was no possible way to ignore it. His best friend's son, or his cub, as James had once called him, Harry Potter, was sharing a compartment with Remus.

"Wha-What?" Harry opened his eyes, and again Remus froze. He remembered those eyes perfectly as if he had seen them only yesterday. They were Lily's eyes. Remus remembered a moment from long ago where he had held Harry for the last time, and those green eyes stared up at him wide. It was the last time he had seen Harry, he had left for a mission that night, and it was the only time he would ever see Harry without a scar.

Remus watched as the Weasley boy and the girl heaved Harry back onto his seat, and while the boy asked if Harry was alright, Remus simply continued to stare, unsure of how to react in this moment.

"Yeah," Harry told his friends before looking at the now empty doorway "What happened? Where's that-that thing? Who screamed?" he asked, quickly looking around the room at all the different people. Remus noticed that his eyes lingered on him. He knew it was silly to think that Harry would remember Remus, he doubted the boy remembered any of them.

"No one screamed." the Weasley boy said and Harry again looked around his surroundings. Remus, his thoughts catching up to the situation, pulled a large bar a chocolate out of his cloak.

"But I heard screaming," Harry said, almost to himself.

The chocolate snapped loudly, and Remus paused in his actions momentarily realizing now that everyone was staring at him. He broke up enough pieces for everyone.

"Here." he said passing a rather large piece to Harry first "Eat it. It'll help." Remus then handed everyone else in the compartment some chocolate. He glanced at the red-haired girl in the corner, who did not seem quite aware of what was going on around her, and placed a large piece of chocolate in her hands.

"What was that thing?" Harry asked him, speaking for the first time directly to Remus. Only momentarily did he consider sugar coating the truth, but then he decided that would not be what James would want for his son.

"A Dementor. One of the Dementors of Azkaban," he said flatly, crumpling up the empty chocolate wrapper and pocketing it. He noticed that they were all still staring at him. None of them had touched their chocolate yet.

"Eat. It'll help. I need to speak to the driver. Excuse me," he said before leaving the compartment before any of them could say another word to him. Remus walked to the end the carriage and opened the door that separated the one carriage from another. He waited for the door to close behind him before leaning against the door and running his hands through his hair. He was not sure how he felt. The only word he could come up with was this: unexpected. He was perfectly prepared for the unpleasant memories a Dementor would bring, but wholly unprepared to see Harry.

Shaking his head and telling himself to get a hold of himself, Remus quickly moved to the front of the train. He borrowed one of the conductor's owls, scratched a quick note to McGonagall telling her what had happened, and asked the driver how long it would be until they reached Hogwarts before returning to the compartment. He opened the door and looked inside before entering, noticing with a smile that Harry still had not eaten the chocolate.

"I haven't poisoned that chocolate you know." He pointed at the piece still in Harry's hand. To his relief, the boy finally took a bite, and Remus watched as color suddenly returned to Harry's face.

"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes. Are you alright, Harry?" he asked. Saying his name out loud somehow made it real. It helped his mind to understand just who it was he was staring at. He had not considered when he accepted Dumbledore's offer to teach at Hogwarts, that James's son would be attending.

"Fine," Harry muttered, and Remus understood that Harry did not like the attention. Remus retook his seat and leaned forward to examine the red haired girl. While her reaction was not as bad as Harry's, it had been very close. While the others talked quietly, Remus slowly coaxed the girl to take a bite of her chocolate. By the time they reached the station at Hogsmeade, she had introduced herself as Ginny Weasley and seemed to be far more cheerful than she had moments before. Remus waited for Harry, Ginny, and the other students to leave the compartment before finally taking down his trunk and stepping off the train.

He was able to take his own Thestral-drawn coach up to the castle. He stared out of the window and watched as the castle approached. When he finally arrived and stepped out of the couch into the courtyard, he felt a bounce in his step that had not been there for many years.

"Did you faint as well, Weasley?" a familiar voice said loudly, and Remus turned his attention to a blond boy blocking Harry and his friends from entering the castle. So that was what Lucius Malfoy's son looked like?

"Did the scary old Dementor frighten you too, Weasley?" Malfoy continued. Remus decided that while he did not want to favor Harry, he also was not going to let James's son feel ashamed simply because no one else at this school was going to understand why the Dementors affected Harry the way they did and walked up quietly behind the students.

"Is there a problem?" he asked mildly, raising his eyebrows at Malfoy and trying to make it very clear that he was not impressed. He watched as Malfoy examined him, taking in the patched clothing and worn out bags. It took effort not to roll his eyes. There was no way to explain to this boy that he did not care whatsoever what a Malfoy thought of him.

"Oh, no, ah, Professor." Malfoy said, smirking at his friends before disappearing up the stairs. Remus wondered if the boy would act so foolishly if he knew the twisted truths about his father's role in the war. Remus watched Harry and his friends hurry up the steps, no doubt hungry for the feast, and Remus let them disappear from his sight without uttering a word. He hoped he had not stepped too far. Harry did not seem upset when Remus had come to his defense.

Remus looked around the castle, taking it all in, and smiled. Despite the events that had occurred on the train, nothing, not a Dementor, not even Sirius Black, could stop the feeling of happiness as he finally returned home.


	2. Moony's Tricks

**Bit early this week but I'm starting a new job this week so I wanted to get it up before things got busy. Again nothing is mine all the characters, dialogue, and general story is the wonderful J.K. Rowling.**

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Remus strode from the Great Hall in good spirits. Eating at the staff table would take some getting used to, but not nearly as much as it would be calling Professor McGonagall, "Minerva." He refused to call Professor Dumbledore "Albus" to his face, out of respect, and calling Severus by his first name rather than simply Snape seemed like a good way to try and show him that Remus was not trying to restart any feud. It had not worked. Severus only seemed to hate Remus more. He was not sure how it was possible, given they'd hardly seen one another in the past decade, but there it was, and if Remus was being honest, it was not one-sided. It was hard to trust someone who, as far as Remus was concerned, was a Death Eater.

Oh, he understood that Dumbledore trusted him, and that at least long ago there was something good in him that Lily saw, but on the whole, he hoped he would not have to deal with Severus often. Minerva had explained, over lunch, that Remus needed to expect Severus to be cold to Harry. The parental part of him hated Severus for letting an old grudge carry into the next generation, but he had a promise to himself to keep: to treat Harry normally. Not as the Boy-Who-Lived, and not as James's Son. Harry had survived for twelve years without him; clearly the boy could handle life on his own.

He looked at his watch and picked up the pace. It was time to teach his third years. Of everything in the Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum at Hogwarts, Remus knew that he would enjoy teaching the third years the best. It was no happy accident that he had a special interest in Dark Creatures. The moment he had access to the Hogwarts Library, he had read everything he could find on them, and after Hogwarts, helping with dark creatures was one of the only ways he could make a living. Somehow people did not mind hiring a Werewolf when said wolf was attacking some other wizard nuisance.

As he grew close to his classroom he could hear a light chatter that told him that the students inside were wondering what his class would be like. Given that their past two experiences involved a Voldemort possessed lunatic and the inept Lockheart, Remus could hardly be surprised. He poked his head inside the classroom for a moment, staring at them and enjoying the scene before entering. It would take him time to get used to people respecting him simply for his position. He smiled to himself and set his briefcase on his desk before facing the class.

"Good afternoon," he said to the class. "Would you please put all your books back in your bags? Today will be a practical lesson. You will need only your wands," he said, hoping that his own personal excitement had not shown in his voice.

A few people muttered to their friends and looked at him curiously. Apparently it was not usual for practical lessons in Defense Against the Dark Arts. No wonder Dumbledore was worried about the education these kids were getting. He waited a moment to let them pack everything up and settle down.

"Right then, if you'd follow me," he said. He was already walking to the back of the classroom and opening the door. He led his class along the deserted corridors and then around the corner, where the first thing Remus then noticed was Peeves floating upside down in midair and stuffing a keyhole with chewing gum. He smiled fondly. While for most students Peeves was at best a nuisance, for the Marauders he had been an ally. Remus did not expect that Peeves would be happy to see Remus as one of the teachers now, but Peeves would have to know that he would not get the Poltergeist into trouble, not unless it meant having a bit of fun himself. Remus, having noticed how focused Peeves was on his mischief-making, did his best to sneak up on him, and he smirked when he was able to get only two feet from the poltergeist before other noticed.

"Loony! Loopy, Lupin!" Peeves began to sing "Loony! Loopy Lupin! Loony! Loopy Lupin!" Remus laughed out loud. Of course he had not surprised Peeves, and obviously Peeves had not forgotten him. Remus was touched that he even remembered the song he had given him. His nickname had been Moony, not Loony, but Peeves was never one for semantics, nor was he one to pass up on a joke. Behind him, Remus heard some of the students muttering. He supposed that, rude or not, Peeves usually showed some more restraint for teachers than he was showing Remus. What most of the students would not know is that of all the people in the castle, currently Remus was probably rather high on Peeves' short list of people that he respected.

"I'd take that gum out of the keyhole if I were you, Peeves. Mr. Filch won't be able to get into his brooms," he said, knowing that Peeves silence was shock at seeing one of the Marauders trying to make life less complicated rather than more. Remus had not yet run into Mr. Filch, but he did not look forward to it. Most of the professors what were still here from his time as a student had long since forgiven the Marauders for their pranks, but somehow Remus doubted Mr. Filch would ever be so kind. Peeves blew one of his famous raspberries and continued his work, and Remus simply sighed and pulled out his wand.

"This is a useful little spell," he told to his class over his shoulder. He really did hope that Peeves understood. If the Poltergeist did not, then Remus knew a new prank war between himself and Peeves would certainly begin. "Please watch closely."

He raised his wand to his shoulder, and, remembering the spell that he had invented, said " _Waddiwasi!"_ He watched, laughing a little, as the wad of chewing gum was forced out of the lock and went straight up Peeve's nose. Peeves shot up and zoomed away down the hall cursing. Remus would have to remember to double check that his office and rooms were protected from Peeves. As much as he enjoyed the poltergeist, he did not need Peeves waking him up by throwing snowballs in his face.

"Cool! Sir!" said someone behind him. He had spent all of last evening learning everyone's names and matching them to their faces.

"Thank you, Dean" Remus said and put away his wand. "Shall we proceed?" he said, acting as if nothing had happened, but he could tell by the renewed muttering that his small squabble with Peeves had gained him points in the student's eyes. He led the class down another corridor and eventually stopped right outside the staff room.

"Inside, please." He opened the door and stood back, allowing his students to enter. He looked inside, and sighed. The room was completely empty, with the exception of Severus. He was sitting in a rather comfortable arm chair and sneered at Remus as the class filed in. The last of the students filed in, and Remus made to close the door.

"Leave it open, Lupin. I'd rather not witness this." Severus quickly stood and walked past the class without looking away from Remus. He stopped next to Remus and turned on his heel to face him.

"Possibly no one's warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult. Not unless Ms. Granger is hissing instructions in his ear," Severus sneered.

Remus felt that it was a mark of how much he had grown as a person that he did not hex Severus in front of his class. He refused to look away from Severus' face and glaring at the pointy, oversized, nosed man in front of him. He had worked with Neville's parents during the war, and nothing gave Severus the right to talk about a student in front of other students like that, certainly not Frank and Alice's son. Remus, aware of the class watching him, raised his eyebrows and turned his face pleasant once again.

"I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation," he said. Remus felt bad for volunteering Neville, but thought it would do the boy some good to face a fear and gain a bit of self-esteem. "And I'm sure he will perform it admirably," Remus finished, hoping that his implied warning that Severus was not welcome in his lesson was obvious enough for the greasy haired man. Severus' lip curled, but he left the room without another word, closing the door behind him.

"Right then!" he said, clapping his hands together and beckoning the class to follow him further into the room to the wardrobe that currently housed the day's lesson. The class stopped a respectable five feet or so from the wardrobe, and as Remus moved to stand next to it, it wobbled slightly.

"Nothing to worry about," he reassured his class, noticing a few people taking steps backwards. "There's a Boggart in there." By most people's reactions, Remus realized happily that a good portion of the class had at least heard of a Boggart and probably had a basic understanding of what they did. Neville looked at Remus, his expression so horrified that Remus began to wonder if volunteering Neville really had been the right choice.

"Boggarts like dark enclosed spaces. Wardrobes." He pointed to the one next to him. "The gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks. I've even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock. This one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice." He had meant it to sound funny; the looks on many of the student's faces, however, made him realize that he had probably just terrified them instead.

"So," he continued, "the first questions we must ask ourselves is, 'What is a Boggart?'" He did not even have to wait to see a hand fly up in the air. Hermione Granger, one of the smartest witches he'd ever encountered, if her tests scores were anything to go by, shot her hand into the air. He nodded in her direction.

"It's a shapeshifter," she said. "It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most."

It was almost a word-for-word rendition of the explanation of a Boggart in their books, but Remus did not mind, though he was slightly surprised to see a red and gold tie around her neck rather than a blue and bronze.

"Couldn't have put it better myself," he said, offering her a smile. "So the Boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a Boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears."

He noticed Neville begin to look particularly uncomfortable, but continued on. "This means that we have a huge advantage over the Boggart before we begin." He glanced at the class. Most did not seem to think he was telling them the truth. Hermione's hand again was floating in the air, but he chanced a glance at Harry, who was staring intently, though not afraid, at the wardrobe. "Have you spotted it, Harry?" he asked.

"Uh, because there are so many of us, it won't know what shape it should be," Harry said, and Remus beamed.

"Precisely!" he said. "It's always best to have company when you're dealing with a Boggart. He becomes confused. Which should he become? A headless corpse or a flesh eating slug? I once saw a Boggart make that very same mistake, tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely frightening." Finally, he saw some of the students begin to relax. A few of them smiled at his story, and some even let out a small laugh.

"The charm that repels a Boggart is simple. Yet, it requires force of mind." He looked at many blank faces. He knew that they should have had two years of Magical Theory by now to explain the emotional and individual aspect of magic. It was why everyone's teapots in transfiguration, though all teapots, had different shapes and patterns.

He tried to explain it in another way. "You see, the thing that really finishes a Boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape you find amusing." He was slightly downcast when he still was not sure they understood. "We will practice the charm, without wands first. After me please." Remus paused for a moment. " _Riddikulus!"_ he said, and the class repeated after him.

"Good." He said, "Very good, but that was the easy part, I'm afraid. You see, the word alone is not enough, and this is where you come in, Neville," he finished, doing his best to encourage Neville. It took a moment, but Neville eventually stepped forward, though he looked as if he were stepping up to the chopping block.

"Right, Neville. First things first. What would you say is the thing that frightens you most in the world?" he asked and realized for the first time that perhaps choosing Neville may not have been the best idea. What if Bellatrix Lestrange were to step out of that wardrobe? He watched as Neville's lips moved, but no sound came out.

"Didn't catch that Neville. Sorry?" Remus said softly.. Neville looked around the room, staring at each of his classmates like he hoped one of them would jump in and save him. When no one did, he said it in a very quiet whisper.

"Professor Snape."

Nearly everyone in the class laughed, and it took considerable effort for Remus not to do so as well. He could only imagine what his friends would think of what was about to come out of that wardrobe. He was still a teacher, however, and this could get rather complicated.

"Professor Snape? Hmm," he said, thinking. He wondered what he could do to take just a small bit of revenge for the man insulting the boy earlier. "Neville, I believe you live with your grandmother?"

"Ah yes," Neville said, suddenly terrified once again, "but I don't want the Boggart to turn into her either!"

Remus shook his head and held up his hands smiling. "No, you misunderstand me. I wonder though, could you tell us what sort of clothes your grandmother usually wears?"

Neville simply stared at him, obviously confused as to how his grandmother's clothing was going to help defeat a Boggart, but he complied and said, "Well, always the same hat. A tall one, with a stuffed vulture on top, and a long dress. Green, normally, and sometimes a fox fur scarf." Oh yes, Remus thought, that would do quite nicely.

"And a handbag?" he prompted Neville.

" A big red one!" came the answer, and Remus smiled, already imagining what this outcome would look like in his head.

"Right then! Can you picture those clothes very clearly Neville? Can you see them in your mind's eye?"

"Yes." Neville said, and Remus noticed that he was beginning to look excited though still uncertain.

"When the Boggart bursts out of this wardrobe Neville and sees you, it will assume the form of Professor Snape," he explained, "and you will raise your wand thus, and cry, ' _Riddikulus!'_ and concentrate hard on your grandmother's clothes. If all goes well, Professor Boggart Snape will be forced into that vulture topped hat, and that green dress, with that big red handbag!"

Everyone in the room laughed, and Remus felt a twinge of guilt. He knew that Severus was not a popular teacher, but Remus justified that if he had not said what he did about Neville, none of this would have happened in the first place.

"If Neville is successful, the Boggart is likely to shift his attention to each of us in turn. I would like all of you to take a moment now to think of the thing that scares you most. And, imagine how you might force it to look comical."

Everyone in the class settled down, and some even closed their eyes as they did what he asked. He wondered what fears they would see. There were the typical spiders, snakes, and other dark creatures, but when looking through his class, like Longbottom, there were many last names he recognized. Other children whose lives had been affected by the war, and what if someone's fear was a werewolf? How would he react to that?

"Everyone ready?" he asked after a few minutes, and most everyone nodded their head. Remus stepped away from Neville and closer to the rest of the class. "Neville, we are going to back away. Let you have a clear field, alright?" He glanced at Neville's face and could see that that was clearly not all right, but he did not say anything so Remus continued "I'll call the next person forward. Everyone back, now, so Neville can get a clear shot."

Everyone, including himself, stepped back against the walls of the staff room. Remus watched Neville as he stepped forward, pulled out his wand, and rolled up his sleeves.

"On the count of three, Neville," Remus said, pointing his wand at the wardrobe door "One, two, three, now!" Remus flicked his wand, and the door of the wardrobe opened. The Boggart was a perfect replica of Severus as he stepped out of the wardrobe, his eyes fixed on Neville. Neville backed away, but his wand was still raised. He kept opening his mouth but no words were coming out. Remus was about to encourage Neville when...

" _Re-Re-Reddikulus!"_ Neville said, and the sound of a whip cracked through the air, and Severus stumbled over a long green dress while wearing the vulture hat. Remus laughed along with the rest of his class. The image was truly absurd and made all the better by the fact that Neville, beaming at his own success, had just stood up to Severus.

"Pavarti! Forward!" he said, and Remus watched as one-by-one his students faced their fears in front of a class of peers. First, it was a mummy who tripped over its own bandages, then it was Seamus' Banshee, letting out an earsplitting scream that hurt Remus' ears, that then suddenly was silenced, then a rat chasing its tale, then a rattlesnake, a bloody eyeball. The Boggart was struggling, he could tell.

"It's confused," Remus said to his class loudly. "We're getting there. Dean!"

Dean hurried to the front of the class and the CRACK! The eyeball turned into a severed hand crawling slowly towards Dean.

" _Riddikulus!"_ Dean shouted and the hand became trapped in a mousetrap. Remus nodded at the particularly creative choice Dean had made. "Excellent! Ron, you next!" he said, and Ron stepped forward. CRACK! The hand became a large spider, and more than one person screamed. Remus had been wondering when a spider was going to show.

" _Riddikulus!"_ Ron said, and suddenly the legs of the spider disappeared and its body began rolling around the classroom. Many of the students scattered to avoid it as it tumbled. And, then, Remus froze. Everything began to happen in slow motion as the Boggart rolled to a stop in front of Harry, who raised his wand. Remus ran as fast as he could across the room and leapt in front of Harry. There was no chance he was going to allow Voldemort appear in front of his students.

"Here!" he shouted.

CRACK! And the Boggart turned into the moon. He stared at it only for a moment before casting the charm himself, turning the moon into a cockroach and then saying, "Forward Neville, and finish him off!" Neville, now much more confident looking, strode forward. Snape re-appeared, Neville shouted the charm, and for a small moment they once again saw Severus with the red handbag before Neville let out a loud "Hah!" and the Boggart exploded in front of them all. There was a moment of satisfied silence before Remus spoke again.

"Excellent!" he said as the class clapped for Neville, who was beaming, "Excellent Neville, well done everyone. Let me see, five points to Gryffindor for every person to tackle the Boggart. Ten for Neville because he did it twice, and five each to Hermione and Harry."

The entire class looked extremely satisfied with themselves.

"But, I didn't do anything," he heard Harry say, and Lupin looked at him thoughtfully.

"You and Hermione answered my questions correctly at the start of class, Harry," he said wondering why he looked so disappointed. He turned his attention back to the class as a whole.

"Very well, everyone, an excellent lesson. Homework? Kindly read the chapter on Boggarts and summarize it for me, to be handed in on Monday. That will be all." Remus said, and he turned his attention to the now rather messy staff room. There was dust everywhere and a few chairs were broken, but it was nothing he could not fix with a wave of his wand. As he did so, Remus listened to his excited students leaving the room, all of them very proud of themselves for taking on the Boggart. Remus smiled to himself. He was sure that Severus would get wind of Neville's Boggart, and he knew that Neville's life would only get more difficult, but he hoped the boy had a bit more confidence in himself now.

There was a small whoosh of wind, and without turning around to see who it was Remus said, "Hello, Peeves." He finished repairing the final chair and leaned against the table, facing the poltergeist. "Sorry about earlier, but I'm a teacher now. Can't have the students knowing all the trouble I got into."

Peeves' response was to blow a wet raspberry directly in Remus' face before zooming away once again singing, "Loony! Loopy, Lupin! Loony! Loopy, Lupin!" Remus simply laughed and poured himself a cup of tea.


	3. A Cup of Tea

**Here's chapter 3! this story got me wondering a bit if there were other characters might be worth delving into. Let me know if there is someone else in HP you'd like to read! As always these wonderful characters belong to JK Rowling.**

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Remus sat back in his chair, his feet resting comfortably as he watched the Grindylow swirling around in its tank. Part of him wanted to keep the creature even after he was done teaching his third years. It did not seem to mind the confinement; in fact, Remus thought the creature had winked at him a few times before darting in the small cave. However, the moment the thought entered his mind, Remus quickly shook it away. Being a dark creature himself, technically speaking, he would hate to be confined in such a way. No, Remus thought, he would return the creature back to the Black Lake after the lessons were done.

He looked through the open door of his office as a group of students went rushing past muttering about Hogsmeade and the feast tonight. With a jolt, Remus sat up stiffly, his mouth hanging open slightly. Any relaxation he had felt moments before was gone. How could he forget? How, after all these years, did he not remember that it was Halloween? Remus glanced at the half open drawer across his room. He knew there was a half empty bottle of firewhiskey simply waiting to be finished off. It was his tradition, after all, to drink this night away, at least, a shot glass for each of them. If Remus was being honest, it usually ended up being quite a few shots more to Peter, Lily and James.

With a forceful kick, Remus closed the drawer. It was near the full moon, and if he wanted the potion to take full effect, he should not dilute it with alcohol. Even if his 'furry little problem' was not an issue, he was a teacher now. He did not want any student finding him in a drunken stupor; never had he felt so accepted and respected. Remus knew that his classes were the favorite choice of many of the students. The last time he had felt like this was when all four of the Marauders had wandered the halls he now often walked alone.

He heard more footsteps walking the halls, and Remus watched as, alone, Harry walked past his door, his hands in his pockets and head down. Remus, to his own surprise, quickly jogged to the open door and stuck his head into the hall.

"Harry?

Harry turned around, a small expression of surprise on his face and his eyebrows rising above the rim of glasses, making him look so similar to James. It was an expression he had seen later in their school careers, when James was less a prankster and more a warrior already fighting against Voldemort before any of them had turned seventeen.

"What are you doing? Where are Ron and Hermione?" he asked curiously. He knew that Harry had a knack for trouble, but that was not because, unlike James, he was the one creating the trouble in the first place.

"Hogsmeade." Harry said lightly though Remus could tell that being left behind bothered the thirteen-year-old more that he cared to admit to a teacher. Remus reminded himself once again that Harry knew nothing of his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher being one of his father's best friends. Remus had made that decision deliberately. As much as he wanted to be more than a teacher to Harry, he dreaded the thought of James's son being terrified of him. Today, however, looking at Harry's face and seeing both of his friends in their son, he could not help but reach out.

"Ah," he said, then pausing wondering if this was a good idea "Why don't you come in, I've just taken delivery of a Grindylow for our next lesson." Remus walked back into his office, realizing that, perhaps, because Harry had not grown up in the Wizarding World, Harry may not know that today marked the anniversary of his parent's deaths.

"A what?" he heard Harry ask, and Lupin smiled to himself as he heard Harry following him back into his office. Remus led Harry to the tank where the Grindylow, spotting a new person, made faces and attempted to flex its muscles.

"A water demon, we shouldn't have much difficulty with him, not after the Cappus. The trick is to break his grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong but very brittle." Remus stared at Harry as he watched the Grindylow swim. Not for the first time, Remus wondered whether if James was still alive, Remus would have taught Harry about the various creatures long before he was thirteen. The Grindylow bared its teeth at Harry before tangling itself in some weeds.

"Cup of Tea?" Lupin said, not wanting Harry to know he had been looking at him. He turned around looking for his kettle, spotting it on the stove. "I was just thinking of making one."

"Alright." Harry said. Remus noted that while he did not seem entirely comfortable spending his free time with a teacher, he also did not seem bothered by Remus's company. Remus tapped his wand on the pot to heat the water inside.

"Sit down," he said as he took the lip off the kettle. "I've only got tea bags I'm afraid, but I daresay you've had enough of tea leaves." Remus said, holding back a small laugh as he filled two cups with the water. Both he and James had actively avoided Divination after their first year when Professor Denraya had predicted many misfortunes about James and Remus. He in particular, had not cared for how often she mentioned wolves.

"How did you know about that?" Harry asked, and Remus remembered how odd it felt at his age to imagine any of his teachers actually having friends and lives. Unfortunately for most of the Hogwarts students, the staff room was a much livelier place than most students thought.

"Professor McGonagall told me," he said simply, passing Harry a cup of tea. "You're not worried are you?"

"No." said Harry, but Remus could tell that something was bothering him. He knew most of what Harry's previous years at Hogwarts had entailed. Indeed, he would be surprised to hear that Harry was scared of a bit of tea after facing a Basilisk. But, the fleeting way he glanced up at Remus before drinking some of his tea made Remus ask.

"Anything worrying you, Harry?" He did not feel like he had a right to ask the question. Not after twelve years of deliberate separation from the boy who should have been like a nephew to him.

"No." Harry said again, and Remus was prepared to drop it, taking a sip from his own cup as Harry turned his attention back to the Grindylow.

"Yes," Harry said suddenly, setting his tea on the desk. Remus stared at the determination in those emerald green eyes and raised his eyebrows silently encouraged Harry to continue.

"You know that day we fought the Boggart?" Harry stated.

"Yes." Remus said slowly, now setting down his own tea.

"Why didn't you let me fight it?" Harry asked, and Remus could tell it was more than just a curiosity question. If Harry acted anything like his mother, and Remus knew that he did, chances were that this had been plaguing Harry's thoughts for weeks. Remus raised his eyebrows.

"I would have thought that was obvious Harry." He said. Not much would have made Remus face off a Boggart in front of an entire class of teenagers, revealing the moon as his fear.

Harry looked at him surprised, as if he had not expected Remus to acknowledge that he had actively prevented a student from participating. He tried to view it from Harry's angle, who was now looking at him desperately.

"Why?" Harry asked again.

"Well," Remus said frowning slightly, thinking that he was beginning to understand why his actions had bothered Harry so much, "I assumed that if the Boggart faced you it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort."

Harry simply stared at him, and Remus was happy to see that he had not flinched at Voldemort's name as most would. He supposed that was Dumbledore's doing, and Remus nodded to himself. James would never have allowed his son to fear a name.

"Clearly I was wrong," Remus continued still frowning that Harry did not seem to understand yet. "But I didn't think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staff room. I imagined that people would panic." He finished, and in that moment Remus wanted to tell Harry everything. He wanted to regale Harry with stories of how he and his father had fought in the war. How, together with his parents and friends, they had been members of Dumbledore's order the moment they had graduated from Hogwarts. He opened his mouth to speak, but Harry beat him to it.

"I didn't think of Voldemort." Harry said, and Remus could tell that he suddenly felt much more comfortable. "I remembered those Dementors."

The moment passed. It would be strange to bring up his relationship with James now. Especially since Harry was keen to discuss Defense Against the Dark Arts with his teacher and not to reminisce about his father with a man he barely knew.

"I see," he said, realizing what Harry had just said. "Well, I'm impressed." He smiled at Harry's once again shocked face and continued. "That suggests that what you fear most of all is fear. Very wise Harry." Remus could not help but feel proud for the obvious way in which Harry was so far ahead of his peers. At only thirteen, and after having faced such horrible atrocities in his life, his best friend's son did not cower, but instead stood and fought. He was as much a Gryffindor as the four Marauders. Even more so than himself, Remus thought while Harry again drank from his tea. And it was then that Remus fully understood why this had bothered Harry.

"So you've been thinking that I didn't believe you capable of fighting the Boggart." Remus stated it rather than asking. He supposed it was not a hard jump to make from Harry's point of view after he had fainted on the train.

"Well, yeah." Harry admitted sheepishly, but Lupin could tell by the way that his eyes twinkled that Harry was suddenly feeling much happier, and he continued on quickly, "Professor Lupin, you know the Dementors?" but Harry stopped talking at a knock on Remus's door. Remus smiled at Harry before looking up and calling, "Come in."

The door opened, and Remus had to hide his disappointment as Severus entered holding a goblet with what he knew to the Wolfsbane potions. He knew that he should drink it while it was fresh, but he would be in no mood or condition to continue this conversation after he did so. He noticed Severus glaring at Harry. McGonagall had told him on the first day of term how Severus seemed to transfer his grudge against James to Harry.

Remus spoke, and Severus's eyes switched to him. There was only slightly less loathing in the black eyes. "Ah, Severus. Thanks very much. Could you leave it here on the desk for me?" He asked politely trying hard not to laugh at how a man such as Severus could act as if he was still a child. Lupin watched as Severus's eyes shot back and forth from Harry to himself. He knew Severus was thinking, as anyone who had met James would, how similar the two of them looked. Something of Remus's thoughts must have shown because Severus' glare increased the longer he looked at Remus. Slightly amused, Remus continued his idle chat with his former enemy.

"I was just showing Harry my Grindylow," he said pleasantly, wondering if Severus would remember a prank the Marauders had pulled in their third year involving one such creature. From the tone of Severus's voice, Remus assumed he did.

"Fascinating," Severus said, not even bothering to hide the contempt in his voice and refusing to look at the creature. "You should drink that directly, Lupin." He said emphasizing the use of Remus's last name.

"Yes, yes I will," he said, now regretting his momentary lapse back into his younger self. Severus did not have to make the potion for him. Remus knew that. He knew that Severus did not attempt to hide his disgust for being asked to do so, and Remus could not blame him. Yet, Severus did it, knowing that if he refused, Dumbledore would make the potion himself, and for that Remus felt only gratitude for the man.

"I made an entire cauldron full. If you need more," Severus said, ignoring Remus, but he thought there was less contempt in Severus's voice now. Perhaps, Remus thought, remembering how close he had once been to Lily, that Severus too did not enjoy Halloween. Remus nodded. "I should probably take some again tomorrow. Thanks very much, Severus." And he tried to convey in his voice just how much it meant to him to have a reliable stock of the Wolfsbane potion available to him in his voice.

"Not at all," Severus said, and Remus understood this to mean quite plainly that while he was brewing this for Remus, there was no chance that it meant that he thought any better of him or his friends. Indeed, from the look in Severus' eyes, his contempt for Remus, James, and now Harry only increased because of it. Remus watched as Severus backed out of the room watching Remus and Harry closely, before closing the door.

Remus turned his attention back to Harry and noticed that he was staring curiously at the goblet, which was smoking slightly. Remus smiled, knowing that Harry was far too polite to ask despite how curious he was.

"Professor Snape has very kindly concocted a potion for me." He noted Harry's surprise that he was telling him any of this. "I have never been much of a potion brewer and this one is particularly complex." He supposed to himself that had he paid more attention to Slughorn instead of James in potions class he would have been more successful. Remus picked up the goblet and sniffed it, trying not to gag and the horrible smell of wet dog that overrode his sensitive nose. "Pity sugar makes it useless." He said this more to himself than Harry as he prepared to take the first swig of the potion. He raised it only a small bit, a silent cheers, to James, thanking him for how he had helped Remus, before taking a drink shuttering afterwards.

"Why—" Harry began to ask but Lupin answered the question before Harry could finish asking it.

"I've been feeling a bit off-color," he said and noticed that he was talking like Sirius used to. The memory of that friend darkened his thoughts considerably, but he continued. "This potion's the only thing that helps. I'm very lucky to be working alongside Professor Snape. There aren't many wizards who are up to making it." He could hear the shift in his voice. It was no longer as relaxed or pleasant as it had been moments ago. He hoped wherever Sirius was he was rolling around in agony for the compliment Remus had just given Severus. He took another drink from the goblet.

"Professor Snape's very interested in the Dark Arts." Harry blurted out, and Remus nearly choked on his potion. He understood perfectly well the implication that Harry was making, and found that he could not blame him for it, considering the stories he heard about how Severus treated him. However, Harry could not be aware of how exactly he sounded like his father when he spoke about Snape.

"Really?" Remus asked, trying harder than he ever had before to not grin cheekily at the boy who he knew was not James. Not trusting himself to continue speaking, he took another gulp from the goblet.

"Some people reckon," Harry paused for a moment before continuing, "Some people reckon he would do anything to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts job."

Remus drained the goblet, the smallest part of his brain agreeing with Harry and wondering what he had just consumed. However, even that thought could not destroy the happiness he was currently feeling. This was not a conversation a student should really be having with a teacher, especially about a fellow professor. It was instead what Remus imagined a kid of the Marauders might say when coming home for a visit from Hogwarts to his in-all-but-blood uncles.

Remus contorted his face as the aftertaste of the potion made its way down his throat. "Disgusting," he said, shaking his head trying to somehow rid himself of it. He could already feel the effects of the potion taking place. It was weakening every part of his body, and he knew in a very short time he would become a very irritable person.

"Well, Harry, I'd better get back to work. I'll see you at the feast later." Remus said, feeling guilty when he saw the expression on Harry's face. More than anything he wanted Harry to stay and chat. However, despite his heart saying that he could trust Harry, his brain overruled it once again. As similar as father and son were, there was no way of knowing how Harry would react to knowing that not just his teacher, but his father's friend, was a werewolf.

"Right." Said Harry and Remus could tell that Harry felt he had said something wrong. Remus watched as Harry stood and left this office, the guilt already washing over him. Emotions were always high around this time of year, and that was discounting the fact that the full moon was only a few days away. He realized with a jolt what he had just told Harry. Before, he had had no intention of joining the school for the feast. He found Halloween rather lacking as something to celebrate. However, Remus realized he wanted to go to be with Harry. Even if he did not know that today was the day his parents died to protect him, Remus wanted to be there at the very least to show his respect for James and Lily, and Remus mused it would be nice to at least attempt to celebrate their lives in the presence of their son rather than mourn their deaths alone in the dark.


	4. Aftermath

**You know the drill, these wonderful characters and the dialogue is sadly not mine.**

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Remus leaned against his teacher's desk in his classroom. It was unfortunate that last week's full moon had fallen on a weeknight, but he supposed it was to be expected. He was in no condition to teach any classes the day after a full moon. Indeed, he was hardly in a condition to stay awake. He was lucky to have had the weekend to recover though he regretting missing Harry's first Quidditch match of the season. From what he had heard from Minerva, Harry was quite the flyer. The events of the Quidditch match, however, had obviously not gone as expected. Near a hundred Dementors had flooded the stadium, and Harry once again had reacted to their presence, only this time he did not fall onto the floor of a train car but nearly fifty feet from a broom. Remus rubbed his eyes and scowled. It did not matter how tired he was after a full moon. HE should have been at the match to help Harry. There was no excuse for it.

His third-year students began to file into the classroom. Many of them, he noticed, were thoroughly relieved. He supposed that the class witnessing the Snape boggart had not fared well when it was Severus taking over the class. As they all took their seats, he noticed many of them glancing up at him. He smiled, ignoring their looks of concern, and listened quietly as they burst into their complaints about Severus' style of teaching.

"It's not fair, he was only filling in, why should he give up homework?"

"We don't know anything about werewolves!" Remus' mood soured considerably. While he was disappointed that Severus' issues with him had carried over into his class, it was another issue to try and trick the students into discovering what he was.

"Two rolls of parchment!"

"Did you tell Professor Snape we haven't covered them yet?"Remus asked, already knowing what the answer to the question would probably be. He forced himself to act calm despite the nervousness he was currently feeling. Had any of them put his symptoms together? It did not seem like anyone was looking at him differently, and there were no rumors going through the school.

"Yes, but he said we were really behind. He wouldn't listen!"

"Two rolls of parchment!" Remus smiled. If they were all upset because of the length of the essay, chances are very few of them had actually even started it. Surely if anyone had discovered his problem, they would have gone to Dumbledore or their head of house. He raised a hand to silence them.

"Don't worry, I'll speak to Professor Snape, you don't have to do the essay," he said, and together the class sighed with relief.

"Oh no," said Hermione, and Remus turned to look at her, his heartbeat quickening once again. "I've already finished it."

He stared at her a moment. She certainly was very smart, and if James could figure it out, then Hermione was more than capable, but she did not say anything more, and Remus continued on with the day's lesson about Hinkypunk. The one he had acquired was quite young but still fully capable of causing a wizard trouble.

"It lures travelers into bogs," he said towards the end of the class. "You notice the lantern dangling from his hand? Hops ahead, people follow the light, then -" and the Hinkypunk demonstrated for him its horrible screeching sound. He noticed that all throughout the lesson, Hermione would not look him directly in the eye. She took her notes diligently and still asked her many questions and even smiled when he awarded her points. He could not be sure; perhaps she only suspected. Or, perhaps he was overreacting. Remus had never paid attention before as to whether this was normal behavior. Maybe she never really looked him in the eye. The bell rang and everyone began to pack up their things and filed out of the classroom. Remus looked back at Harry, who had been quiet for most of the class.

"Wait a moment, Harry, I'd like a word," he said covering the Hinkypunks box with a box. Remus took a moment trying to decide if he was going to be a teacher or a friend, but he found that, given what had happened, he did not care so much about that line anymore.

"I heard about the match," he said without looking up at Harry. Instead, he returned to his desk and began to pack up. "And, I'm sorry about your broomstick. Is there any chance of fixing it?"

"No," said Harry. "The tree smashed it to bits."

Remus nodded. He'd known the answer to the question before he had asked, but he did not know how to approach the conversation. It felt awkward.

He sighed. "They planted the Whopping Willow the same year that I arrived at Hogwarts. People used to play a game, trying to get near enough to touch the trunk. In the end, a boy called Davy Guggin nearly lost an eye, and we were forbidden to go near it. No broomstick would have a chance."

"Did you hear about the Dementors, too?" Harry said, and Remus looked up at him quickly. Remus could tell that he was uncomfortable talking about them.

"Yes, I did. I don't think any of us have seen Professor Dumbledore that angry. They have been growing restless for some time, furious at his refusal to let them inside the grounds. I suppose they were the reason you fell?" Remus said, and watched Harry closely.

"Yes," said Harry simply, and Remus nodded, waiting patiently for Harry to continue. Finally, it seemed something out of Harry.

"Why?" he asked desperately. "Why do they affect me like that? Am I just—"but Remus refused to let him finish that sentence.

"It has nothing to do with weakness," he said rather sharply. "The Dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that the others don't have." And Remus silently pleaded with Harry trying to will him to understand.

"Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest, places. They glory in decay and despair. They drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air around them. Even muggles feel their presence even though they can't see them. Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself. Soulless, and evil. You'll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life. And, the worst that happened to you, Harry, is enough to make anyone fall off their broom. You have nothing to feel ashamed of." Remus finished, and he could see that at least some of the dreariness had gone from Harry's face though he still did not smile.

"When they get near me," Harry said, refusing to look at Remus, and his voice cracked. Remus's eyes flicked up to make sure that the door to the classroom was closed. "I can hear Voldemort, murdering my mum."

Remus reached out to put his arm around Harry's shoulder, but at the last moment decided against it. He knew perfectly well that Dementors could make you relive your worst memories, but the idea that Harry would hear such a thing had not occurred to Remus. He did not know what happened that night twelve years ago, but it had never occurred to him that Harry would remember it. He'd always thought, or maybe hoped, that Harry had been too young to remember the final moments of James and Lily.

Remus did not say anything. He could not think of a single thing that he could say to bring comfort to Harry. Then to his surprise, the vulnerability that Harry showed disappeared as he looked up at Remus and shifted to anger.

"Why did they have to come to the match!" Harry said.

"They're getting hungry," Remus said bitterly and shut his briefcase "Dumbledore won't let them into the school so their supply of human prey has dried up. I don't think they could resist the large crowd around the Quidditch field. All that excitement, emotions running high, it was their idea of a feast." Remus did not bother to try and hide his disdain of the creatures.

"Azkaban must be terrible," Harry said quietly and Remus nodded.

"The fortress is set on a tiny island way out to sea. But, they don't need walls and water to keep the prisoners in. Not when they're all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks."

"But Sirius Black escaped from them! He got away," Harry said, and Remus stared. Did he know? Surely no one had told him why Sirius had been in Azkaban. He would not be surprised if someone had warned Harry against Sirius - that would only help to keep Harry on guard - but did he know that Sirius was the reason his parents were dead? He nearly dropped his suitcase and had to move quickly to catch it.

"Yes," he said, not looking at Harry. "Black must have found a way to fight them. I wouldn't have believed it possible. Dementors are supposed to drain a wizard of his powers if he's left with them too long." Remus forced himself to stop talking before he revealed something to Harry that he did not want to. It was not the first time that Remus had wondered if being Padfoot had somehow helped Sirius escape. Something rolled in Remus' stomach. He was the only living person, besides Sirius himself, to know that Sirius could transform into a dog. But, surely, Remus tried to convince himself, Sirius had used dark magic to get out of Azkaban. He was Voldemort's inside man, and obviously, Sirius had learned something from his master.

"You made that Dementor on the train back off," said Harry and Remus was happy to move onto a different subject, although he did not feel like he deserved the look of respect that Harry was giving him.

"There are certain defenses one can use," Remus said, but then quickly added "but, there was only one Dementor on the train. The more there are the more difficult it becomes to resist."

"What defenses?" Harry asked at once, and Remus thought he knew where this conversation was going. "Can you teach me?"

"I don't pretend to be an expert on fighting Dementors, Harry." Clearly that his godfather's special ability. "Quite the contrary." Remus knew how to summon a Patronus but refused to use the corporeal form. He supposed if it was his last resort he would, but only ever then would he allow the wolf to burst from his wand.

"But if the Dementors come to another Quidditch match, I need to be able to fight them." Remus stared at Harry. He could see the determination of Lily's eyes, but only the son of James Potter could talk about Quidditch in such a way. He hesitated, trying to decide if he wanted to try to teach Harry. The chances of the thirteen-year-old wizard having to create a Patronus seemed astronomical, but he could tell that if he did not help Harry, then Harry would find a way to do it one his own.

"Well, all right," Remus said. "I'll try and help. But it will have to wait until next term, I'm afraid. I have a lot to do before the holidays. I chose a very inconvenient time to fall ill."

Even with his condition of waiting until after Christmas, Remus could tell that Harry was happier than he had been for days, and Remus thought it might have less to do with fighting the Dementors and more to do with him finally understanding why they affected him so much. Remus had reservations about trying to teach Harry the Patronus Charm, but then he remembered what Harry had told him. If there was any chance he could help Harry not ever hear his mother's final moments again, then nothing else really mattered. Remus would do anything possible to try and achieve that.


	5. Old School Friends

**Hello all! You're all old hats by now. Obviously this is not my own original idea. Here's chapter 5!.**

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"Ah yes, let me see. How about eight-o-clock on Thursday evening? The History of Magic Classroom should be large enough. I'll have to think carefully about how we're going to do this. We can't bring a real Dementor into the castle to practice on."

That was what he had said two days ago when Harry had asked him about what he called 'anti-Dementor' lessons. Part of Remus had hoped Harry would forget about the lessons, but he would have been surprised if he had. The question was, however, how. Remus was sure that Harry would be able to produce a Patronus, with some practice, without a Dementor present, but that was no guarantee that he would be able to do so should one come looking for him. If Remus was going to teach Harry to defend himself, he wanted to make sure that Harry would be able to survive at the very least until help could arrive.

It was that evening that the solution presented itself to Remus. If Harry was telling the truth (and he had no reason to think otherwise) a Boggart facing Harry would become a Dementor. Remus began to search every nook and cranny in the castle trying to find one.

When he arrived in the History of Magic room, Lupin was surprised to see that Harry was already there, waiting. He dragged in the large packing case and with some effort heaved it onto Professor Binn's desk.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"Another Boggart," Remus said as he took off his cloak. "I've been combing the castle ever since Tuesday, and very luckily I found this one lurking inside Mr. Flitch's filing cabinet," he said. And it was lucky, considering that as of two hours ago, he still had not found a Boggart - not until Peeves, that wonderful Poltergeist, had come soaring in, telling that Filch was enraged by something in his office.

"It's the closest we'll get to a real Dementor. The Boggart will turn into a Dementor when he sees you, so we'll be able to practice on him. I can store him in my office when we're not using him, there's as cupboard under my desk he'll like."

"Okay" was all Harry said, but Remus could imagine the relief that Harry must be feeling at not having to come face-to-face with a real Dementor.

"So," Remus said, taking out his wand and motioning for Harry to do the same. "The spell I'm going to try to teach you is highly advanced magic, Harry. Well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm." He hoped that Harry understood that his expectations should be low. Chances were if he ever did create a Patronus, it certainly would not be tonight.

"How does it work?" Harry said.

"Well, when it works correctly it conjures up a Patronus," he said and, realizing how unhelpful of an explanation that was, he added "Which is a kind of anti-Dementor. A guardian that acts as a shield between you and the Dementor." He could tell from Harry's expression that he still did not really understand.

"The Patronus is a kind of positive force. A projection of the very things that a Dementor feeds upon. Hope, happiness, the desire to survive. But, it cannot feel despair as real humans can. So the Dementors can't hurt it. But I must warn you, Harry, that the charm might be too advanced for you. Many qualified wizards have difficulty with it."

If he could only get Harry to produce a non-corporeal Patronus, Remus thought, that that would be enough. At the very least, if the Dementors should try and attack him in the middle of a game, Harry would be able to fly safely back to the ground.

"What does a Patronus look like?" Harry asked.

"Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it."

"And how do you conjure it?" Harry said, and Remus could hear the excitement in his voice.

"With an incantation," Remus said. "Which will work only if you are concentrating with all your might on a single, very happy, memory."

Remus watched as Harry closed his eyes and tried to think of a memory. He noticed that it seemed to be taking longer than it should. Harry had suffered through a lot, and Remus again wished that he could have been there earlier for Harry. To make it easier to find truly happy memories.

"Right," Harry eventually said.

"The incantation is this," Remus said, setting down his wand to make sure nothing came bursting from it, and cleared his throat. " _Expecto-Patronum."_

" _Expecto-Patronum"_ Harry repeated. " _Expecto-Patronum"._

"Concentrating hard on your happy memory?" Remus asked, more to remind him to do so than anything else.

"Oh, yeah," Harry said, tightening his grip on his wand. " _Expecto-Patrno, no_ , _Patronum_ , Sorry. _Expecto-Patronum. Expecto-Patronum."_

And to both Remus' and Harry's surprise, something silvery whooshed out of Harry's wand. Remus raised his eyebrows. Perhaps, he thought, Harry would master this much faster than he expected.

"Did you see that!" Harry said excitedly. "Something happened."

"Very good," Remus said smiling widely. Now his doubts and fears about teaching Harry this magic faded. It was no longer a question of 'if' but 'when' Harry would be able to cast a Patronus. "Right then, ready to try on a Dementor?"

"Yes," Harry said as he moved into the middle of the classroom. Remus could see the focused expression on Harry's face as he pulled open the packing case. He watched as a Dementor rose slowly from the box, already looking towards Harry. As soon as its whole body was out of the box, the lamps began to flicker before quickly going out. It glided slowly towards Harry, and Remus held out his wand just in case as it took in a deep, terribly cold breath, and Remus shivered, following the Dementor closely. It blocked his view of Harry.

" _Expecto-Patronum!"_ He heard Harry shout. " _Expecto-Patronum! Expecto-"_

And then Harry was silent and Remus heard a soft thump on the floor. Quickly Remus moved in front of the Boggart and faced the moon once again.

" _Riddikulus!"_ he said, turning the moon into a balloon and sending it flying back into the packing case, locking it with his wand before turning to see Harry once again passed out on the floor. He bent down next to him and, for a moment, stared. It really was remarkable how similar he looked to James. It was not just the messy black hair or the glasses; James', after all, had not been round. It was the way he acted, as if nothing really bothered him, and how he talked, always so honestly, that was Lily.

"Harry?" he said softly, and Harry nearly hit his face against Remus with how quickly he woke.

"Sorry," Harry said, and Remus felt like he should yell at Harry for how much he seemed to apologize..

"Are you alright?" Remus asked as he stood back up and offered a hand to Harry.

"Yes!" Harry said as he got to his feet and leaned against one of the desks. Remus dug a chocolate frog out of his pocket.

"Here" he said handing it over. "Eat this before we try again. I didn't expect you to do it your first time; in fact, I would have been astounded if you had." He ate his own chocolate frog, wanting to give Harry enough time to recuperate.

"It's getting worse," Harry said, biting into his chocolate. "I could hear her louder that time, and him! Voldemort!"

Remus could feel the color drain from his face. Despite the Boggart being packed away, he felt a chill. He would not stop Harry from speaking, but he desperately did not want to hear about his friends' violent deaths, especially from their son.

"Harry, if you don't want to continue, I will more than understand." He knew what Harry's answer would likely be, but how the Quidditch cup could be worth hearing what Harry did every time he got close to a Dementor he did not know.

"I do!" Harry said which such determination that Remus knew there was no point in trying to talk him out of it. He quickly finished eating the rest of the chocolate frog. "I've got to! What if the Dementors turn up at our match against Ravenclaw. I can't afford to fall off again. If we lose this game, we've lost the Quidditch cup."

All Remus could do was shake his head slightly and smile. "All right then, you might want to select another memory, a happy memory I mean, to concentrate on. That one doesn't seem to have been strong enough."

Harry nodded and moved back towards the center of the classroom, and Remus moved back towards the packing case.

"Ready?" he asked, gripping the lid of the box.

"Ready," Harry said.

"Go!" Remus said as he pulled the lid open, and again a Dementor rose from its depths. The room was plunged back into an icy stillness, and Remus readied himself once again. The Dementor moved towards Harry, the lights went out. One of the Dementor's hands was slowly reaching towards Harry. This time, Remus stood to the side so that he could watch.

" _Expecto-Patronum!"_ Harry yelled " _Expecto-Patronum! Expecto Pa-"_ and Remus watched as Harry went rigid. At least this time, he caught Harry before he fell to the ground. Remus set him down gently before pointing his wand at the Boggart, which had already ceased being a Dementor.

" _Riddikulus!"_ he said quietly and forced the Boggart to become a Frisbee and tossed it back into the pack. Flicking his wand to make sure that the Boggart couldn't get out, Remus bent down by Harry once again.

"Harry." There was no response this time. "Harry?" he said a bit more sharply "Wake up." And he tapped Harry hard on the face until he saw movement once again. He seemed dazed for longer this time and much paler than before, but he finally opened his eyes and looked up at Remus.

"I heard my dad." Harry muttered. "That's the first time I've ever heard him. He tried to take on Voldemort himself to give my mum time to run for it."

Remus stood back from Harry. He noticed the tears in Harry's eyes but didn't care. His hands were shaking. Harry sat up and bent down, pretending to tie his shoe as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"You heard James?" Remus heard his own voice crack slightly and quickly shook away any tears that were threatening to fall from his eyes. He stared at Harry, who still did not look up.

"Yeah." His reply came shakily as he finally stood and met Remus' eyes. "Why? You didn't know my dad, did you?"

Remus opened his mouth but closed it quickly again. He tried again, but the words tripped over his tongue "I-I did as a matter of fact." He took a deep breath. "We were friends at Hogwarts." He did not want to say anymore and could see that Harry was still shaking.

"Listen, Harry, perhaps we should leave it here for tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced. I shouldn't have suggested putting you this." What he said was true, and Remus knew it as a fresh bout of guilt overcame him.

"No!" Harry said with surprising surety. "I'll have one more go. I'm not thinking of happy enough things. That's what it is. Hang on." And Remus watched as Harry again racked his brain to find a happy memory. Remus turned and walked back to the box trying to stop hearing the words Harry had said. James had tried to hold Voldemort off. Remus would have known that is what James would do, but the moment he made that decision surely Prongs had known that he would not survive. Remus gripped the desk hard, trying to consecrate on anything but that knowledge but he could not escape it, and a single tear fell onto the dusty wood.

There was movement behind him, and Remus turned back around to see Harry standing, wand out, in the center of the room.

"Ready?" he asked for the third time tonight, truly wondering that if this was any other student, anyone but James's son, if he would allow this to happen for a third time.

"Concentrating hard?" Harry nodded. "All right, go!" and for the final time, he told himself, he opened the lid of the packing case, and the Dementor came roaring out. The room was cold and dark, and this time, Remus truly felt the effect, as if it were a real Dementor.

" _Expecto-Patronum!"_ Harry shouted. " _Expecto-Patronum! Expecto-Patronum!"_

And just as Remus was about the step in, determined that Harry would not pass out this time, the Dementor halted, and after a momentary pause, a silvery shape burst out of Harry's wand. It stood between Harry and the Dementor, and though the shape was not clear, this was obviously more than a lesser shield Patronus. Remus pointed his wand at the Dementor.

" _Riddikulus!"_ he shouted, jumping in front of the Boggart, there was a loud crack and Remus stared only momentary at the moon before stuffing back into the packing case. It did not appreciate being taken out and then forced back in, but Remus managed it just the same. He turned around to see Harry sitting in one of the chairs, his hands and legs shaking.

"Excellent!" he said walking over to Harry. "Excellent Harry! The was definitely a start." More than a start, most likely.

"Can we have another go? Just one more go?" Harry said very quickly, and Remus could tell that adrenaline was making him jittery.

"Not now." Remus said, sitting down next to Harry. "You've had enough for one night," he said more firmly, already seeing Harry beginning to open his mouth to argue. "Here." e handed Harry a whole bar of chocolate. "Eat the lot or Madame Pomphrey will be after my blood." Harry smiled and stood, taking the chocolate.

"Same time next week?" Remus asked as Harry bit into the chocolate.

"Okay!" Harry said excitedly. Remus began to extinguish all of the lamps in the room. He could not stop grinning. While the marauders had done their fair share of advanced magic at Hogwarts in creating the map and the other three becoming Animagis, none of them, Remus thought, would have been able to come even close to producing a Patronus at Harry's age.

"Professor Lupin?" Harry said behind him. "If you knew my dad, you must have known Sirius Black as well."

Remus turned around sharply, all his pleasant thoughts of the past gone in an instance. "What gives you that idea?" He had not meant his words to come out so sharply.

"Nothing," Harry said quickly. "I mean; I just knew they were friends at Hogwarts too."

Remus relaxed and took a deep breath though he could not bring himself to smile. "Yes, I knew him,"he said simply, but then the anger he felt whenever someone mentioned Sirius's name rose. "Or I thought I did. You better be off Harry, it's getting late."

Remus waited until Harry's footsteps faded before launching the last lit lamp across the room and, with a crash, plunging himself into blackness.


	6. Padfoot and Prongs

**Wow this story has had such a great response! thanks! here is the next chapter!**

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When Remus sat at the teachers' table eating breakfast, something he still found to be odd, he found himself enjoying overhearing a conversation between Minerva and Filius. They seemed to be disagreeing over the magical theory of a Patronus. He had told them a few days before about Harry's now constant success in creating a shield Patronus. Minerva had glowed with pride that one of her students was successfully teaching another such advanced magic. She, to his surprise, had been impressed when she learned that he could produce a full-fledged Patronus and had been for many years now. Remus was thankful that she had not asked him what form it took. While he doubted she would judge him harshly, he did not want anyone to know his was a wolf.

Taking a sip of pumpkin juice, Remus unrolled this morning daily prophet and nearly spit out the juice when he read the front he choked, Minerva thumped him hard on the back and encouraged him to cough, flattening out the prophet to take a look herself. He saw her frown and felt her grip his shoulder for a moment, but thankfully she did not say anything. A picture of Sirius Black sprawled across the front page. His hair was far longer than Remus had ever seen it, and there were more lines on his face than Remus could ever remember. He supposed that was the effect Dementors had on someone after twelve years, but he could not help but wonder if the haunted look in Sirius's eyes had been there before he had gone to prison.

It was not the picture that had nearly caused him to regurgitate his lunch, as he was growing used to seeing it, but rather the headline that was underneath. The paper stated quite plainly that should the Dementors find Sirius, they would be allowed to perform the Dementor's kiss. No matter how many times Remus told himself that all of it was true, that Sirius was a traitor, that he was the reason James and Lily were dead, that he was the one who killed all those muggles and Peter, that he had turned against his friends and joined Voldemort, he still had a hard time believing it was true. Despite the evidence against his old friend, the idea that Sirius Black and Padfoot were somehow the same person could not settle in his thoughts. Despite how much Sirius Black deserved the Dementors kiss for what he'd done, if he received the kiss then not just everything that Sirius Black was would disappear, but everything that Padfoot had been would disappear as well.

These thoughts occupied Remus's mind all day, and he found that he did not want to join the rest of the school for dinner that night. So many of the professors would be talking about this latest development, and while no one, except for Severus, believed Remus to still be in contact with Sirius, he did not feel like staring into all of their faces and acting like he was not bothered by the news. So instead, Remus took dinner in his office and enjoyed the quiet. No one came looking for him, and not until it was time for Harry's Patronus practice did Remus leave his rooms.

He could not believe how much Harry had improved over their lessons. While he still could not produce a fully formed Patronus, he could reliably create a shield without fainting or even faltering. Remus could tell though that Harry was less pleased.

"You're expecting too much of yourself," he told Harry. "For a thirteen- year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement. You aren't passing out anymore, are you?" he said, trying to lift Harry's spirits.

"I thought a Patronus would charge the Dementors down or something," Harry said. "Make them disappear."

Remus put away the Boggart for the night and turned back to Harry "The true Patronus does do that," he said, "but you've achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. If the Dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you will be able to keep them at bay long enough to get back to the ground." He knew this meant little to Harry, who seemed to operate on an all or nothing mentality when it came to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"You said it's harder if there are loads of them," Harry said, and Remus nodded, but he also knew that should something happen, he as well as the other professors would quickly launch their own Patronesses to prevent anyone from being too affected by the Dementors.

"I have complete confidence in you," he said, smiling and pulling out two bottles of butterbeer from his cloak. "Here, you've earned a drink. Something from the Three Broomsticks. You won't have tried it before."

"Butterbeer!" Harry exclaimed, and Remus looked at him surprised. "Yeah, I like that stuff." Remus raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, Ron and Hermione brought me some back from Hogsmeade," Harry said a little too quickly, but Remus did not feel like getting Harry into trouble tonight. The amount of times he had sneaked out of the castle with Harry's father did not give him much room to judge.

"I see," was all that he chose to say, handing one of the bottles over to Harry. "Well, let's drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw," he said, raising his own bottle, and then realizing what he had said, added, "Not that I'm supposed to take sides as a teacher." He did not think Harry was bothered. Now that he knew Remus had been friends with his father, it was hardly a stretch for Harry to deduce that Remus too had been in Gryffindor.

They sat atop two desks and drank the butterbeer in a comfortable silence. Since his first Patronus lesson, Harry had relaxed around Remus considerably. Remus supposed finding a personal connection to his parents probably had something to do with it, and he did not have the heart to push Harry away. It felt as if a weight had lifted off of his chest, no longer having to worry about accidentally mentioning James or even Sirius to him. And, Remus appreciated how Harry seemed to focus more on James being his friend and less on Sirius ever being involved in his life. Finally, when Remus was nearly finished with his bottle, Harry spoke, pulling Remus from his thoughts

"What's under a Dementor's hood?" Harry asked. Remus lowered his bottle and tried to think whether he had ever read anything about it.

"Hmm," he said. "Well, the only people who really know are in no condition to tell us." He glanced at Harry to see if he knew what he was talking about. "You see, the Dementor lowers its hood only to use its last and worst weapon."

"What's that?"

"They call it the Dementor's Kiss," he said, and he could not help the smirk that came across his face when he saw the look of disgust on Harry's face. "It's what Dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly. I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and," Remus paused for a moment, realizing what he was describing to Harry, but it was too late not to continue "And, suck out his soul."

Harry spat out a bit of his butterbeer in surprise. Remus did not imagine he had expected such an answer to such an innocent question.

"What?" and he stared at Remus with wide eyes. "They kill—"

Remus shook his head and took another drink of butterbeer. "Oh no, much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working, but you'll have no sense of self anymore. No memory, no anything." And despite himself, his mind snapped back to the man who was on the run. The man who would receive such a punishment should be caught. "There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just exist as an empty shell, and your soul is gone forever. Lost." He drank more butterbeer wishing it was something stronger, but knowing that the only person at this school he would want to talk about this with was currently sitting right in front of him. "It's the fate that awaits Sirius Black. It was in the Daily Prophet this morning. The Ministry have given the Dementors permission to perform it if they find him."

Remus watched as Harry took in this information. It felt good to say it out loud to someone. To admit that there was a possibility that the last other Marauder alive could disappear in such a way. Something in Harry's expression darkened.

"He deserved it," Harry said quite suddenly. It was not an unexpected answer. Remus did not, for a moment, think that Harry would grieve for his godfather in any way should Sirius receive the Dementor's kiss. He'd known since the moment he read the paper this morning that he would be the only person to even remotely mourn for Sirius Black.

"You think so?" Remus asked Harry, slightly surprised to find his lack of feelings in the matter. "Do you really think anyone deserves that?"

"Yes!" Harry said firmly. "F-for some things," he added, and in that moment, Remus knew that somehow Harry had discovered the whole truth of the matter. He did not know how, and he supposed it did not matter. Remus could understand Harry's belief and he supposed that had he never known Padfoot, he might even agree with him. Harry did not say anything else but finished his butterbeer and quickly thanked Remus before leaving the classroom.

Remus took the final sip of his and vanished the bottles with his wand. He wondered what James and Peter would say about the matter. He could not imagine Peter really saying anything of significance in a conversation about Dementors. They had always been a subject he had not wanted to think about. James, on the other hand, he felt would be against it. If one of the Marauders ever betrayed the others, and this Remus knew, because he felt much the same, that he would want to kill the bastard himself.

Three days later, Remus sat next to Minerva, happy that he was finally able to watch Harry in a Quidditch game. Whatever anyone had said about Harry's flying ability was a lie. Yes, James had been very talented on a broom, but Remus thought with a smile that Harry put his father to shame. Remus, while he always enjoyed watching Quidditch, had never been much of a flyer. It was impossible, however, to spend seven years at Hogwarts with James Potter as a friend and not pick up on a few details. He could tell that while James probably would be more comfortable in tight maneuvers than Harry, the precision with which Harry performed his dives was phenomenal. Ravenclaw did not stand a chance, and everyone knew it. Whoever gave Harry that Firebolt had ensured that.

Remus watched as Harry soared high above the pitch only to perform yet another massive dive, and with a smile, Remus understood his plan. It seemed the Ravenclaw seeker had decided on tagging Harry rather than searching for the snitch, and Harry had decided to do something about that. Able to pull out of the dive much quicker than her, Harry zoomed across the pitch towards the opposite end. Then Remus frowned. Black figures were on the grass of the pitch, but they did not look like Dementors. They seemed to be walking more than flying. He leaned forward, his wand out just in case, but there was no need. Harry zoomed past them and a giant silver form appeared, charging full force towards whatever was on the grass. He watched as cloaked students scattered across the field running away as fast as they could from a very large silver stag.

There was an uproar from the crowd, and Remus turned his attention back to Harry, who was now performing a victory lap holding the golden snitch up in the air. Minerva stood, jumping up and down and actually pulled Remus into a hug, and patting him on the cheek as she let go. He smiled, shaking his head, and quietly disappeared walking down the stairs and onto the grassy pitch. He waited on the sidelines as the Gryffindor team, now one huddled scarlet mass somehow managed to land safely on the ground. A rush of Gryffindor students came bursting from the stands. Remus glanced over at the cloaked students, one of whom had very blond hair, who were already being yelled at by Minerva, and so Remus decided to go and join the Gryffindors.

Harry seemed to be in the middle of the mass and was being congratulated by everyone. Remus used Hagrid as a shield, allowing him to slowly move his way through the crowd until he could finally see the mass of messy black hair. He leaned over a short blond kid with a camera and spoke softly.

"That was quite some Patronus." He only realized now that he was shaking slightly. He had not considered the shape Harry's Patronus would take, but now that he had seen it, Remus could not imagine it being anything else.

"The Dementors didn't affect me at all!" Harry said excitedly. "I didn't feel a thing." Remus almost felt bad for disappointing Harry, but he said, "That would be because they, ah, weren't Dementors." Harry looked at him with a confused expression, and he gestured for Harry to follow. "Come and see." It took some effort, but Remus successfully led Harry out of the crowd, who hardly seemed to notice that their champion was no longer there.

"You gave Mr. Malfoy quite a fright." Remus could not help but smirk with approval as they could clearly see, laying in a crumpled heap on the ground, Malfoy, the Slytherin Quidditch team captain, and two other boys struggling to get out of large black cloaks.

"An unworthy trick!" Minerva was yelling. "A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor seeker. Detention for all of you and fifty points from Slytherin! I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake! Ah, here he comes now!"

Remus bade Harry a goodbye as he was once again swallowed up by the rest of Gryffindor house and taken back to what Remus was sure would be a very enjoyable party. He continued to watch as the Slytherin boys struggled in their robes, one still unable to successfully get his head out as Dumbledore quietly spoke to them. All four of the boys were eventually lead away by Severus and Minerva, but Dumbledore remained for a moment. He glanced at Remus, and he saw a twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes that made Remus think that he too had noticed the significance of the Stag Patronus. Dumbledore did not know that James could transform into the animal, but it had never been a secret that the Potter's Patronesses were a doe and stag.

Eventually, Remus was alone on the pitch, with the exception of a ginger cat who purred and rubbed against his legs for a moment. Remus bent down and scratched its back before the cat ran off towards the forest. He put his hands in his pockets and walked around the field in circles. It seemed so right that Harry should first cast the stag on the Quidditch field. How could Harry's Patronus, after all, be anyone else, but Prongs.


	7. The Marauder's Map

**Sorry, it's been a bit longer gap from the last one than usual. But I really wanted to make sure and get this one right. You know how it goes, its not mine (though I wish it was.)**

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Remus sat in his office glaring at his reflection in the mirror. He should be over these sorts of feelings by now. Nothing about his past time at Hogwarts should prevent him from protecting Harry. And yet, here he sat, alone in his office, still not marching up to Professor Dumbledore's office and telling him everything he knew about Sirius Black.

The was the second time Sirius had returned to the castle this school year, and this time, he had been in Harry's dormitory. He'd stood over Ron with a knife, it was a miracle that anyone in the room was still alive given Sirius track record, and it was quite possible that Remus was responsible for what happened. He'd taken it upon himself to check each secret passageway out of the castle when he'd first arrived. Four of them had already been given extra protection, but that was to be expected; even in their time, Filtch had known about them. He doubted that anyone would bother with adding protection to the one under the Whomping Willow. Even if they knew that Sirius knew of that passage, they would have no reason to believe that he also knew about the secret knot that would freeze the tree and allow for a safe exit.

The one behind the mirror on the fourth floor was caved in, and while it was possible that someone would move all that rubble, Remus had checked on it multiple times and not noticed any attempts to do so. Then there was the one-eyed witch passage, and this thought made him uneasy. It would be simple for Sirius to walk around Hogsmeade as a dog, and even if Sirius did not have a wand to break into Honeydukes, all he needed was a hair pin. Every Marauder had learned to pick locks the muggle way. Otherwise, they would have been arrested for underage magic.

Remus scowled and turned his chair away from the mirror, unable to stare at the pathetic coward it reflected any longer. Wormtail and Prongs were dead. They were dead because of Sirius. Whatever promises the Marauders made years ago, he had broken first. There was no reason he should feel so guilty for even thinking of coming clean and telling Dumbledore everything. He had no loyalty to Sirius, but to tell Dumbledore the true tales of the Marauders would mean revealing to Dumbledore that ever since his second year of Hogwarts, he had lied to his face. Perhaps if Sirius had not turned out to be a lunatic, Dumbledore would have heard long ago of the tales of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Perhaps he would have even laughed, his blue eyes twinkling, as all four of them regaled him with stories, but that was not the world Remus lived in. If it came down to this job or Harry it was an easy decision. If Remus had to choose Dumbledore's trust and faith or Harry, it was obvious. Sirius had stopped being a Marauder the moment he betrayed all of them. Harry, though he did not know it, was protected by those promises they had made. Remus stood and put on his cloak. He would happily sacrifice everything in the world to ensure Harry's safety, even if it meant Harry discovering every horrible secret about Moony.

Green fire burst into life in Remus's fireplace, and he jumped in surprise. He stared at it, absolutely transfixed as to who would be trying to contact him.

"Lupin! I want a word!" Severus's voice shouted from the fire. Remus racked his brains trying to think if he had done anything in recent memory to have somehow insulted Severus. Nothing came to mind, and he could not even remember the last time he spoke to Severus, but there was no mistaking the only barely controlled rage in the voice that came from the fire.

Taking a deep breath and checking in the mirror that his face did not show any kind of emotion except an idle curiosity, Remus stepped into the fire and whirled towards Severus's fireplace. As he stepped out of the fire, Remus briefly noted that a very worried Harry stood on the other side of the Severus's desk. He brushed some of the ash off his cloak and looked at Potions Master.

"You called, Severus?" He said in his usual mild voice.

"I certainly did." Severus sneered, and the only time Remus could ever remember Snape looking so angry was that fateful day next to the lake in their fifth year. Remus watched as Snape marched over to his desk and followed. "I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets. He was carrying this." Snape pointed to something sitting on his desk that Remus had never expected to see again. He closed his mind and never in his life felt it more important to not convey any emotion at all as he read the words the Marauders had left for Snape on their map:

 _Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business._

 _Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git._

 _Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor._

 _Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day and advises him to wash his hair, the slime-ball._

If he had stumbled on their map and these messages in any other situation Remus thought, he might have died of laughter. As it was, if he did not play this as perfectly as possible there was a very good chance Hogwarts would be down a teacher and a student, and he was not entirely sure that Severus would let them walk out of the castle. Still, no matter what happened next, he could believe he was staring at the Marauder's Map.

"Well?" Snape goaded him, and Remus glanced at the bag of Zonko's products next to the map, thinking very quickly. If he failed to talk his way out of this, then he never deserved to be a Marauder in the first place.

"Well?" Snape said again "This parchment is plainly full of dark magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin, where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?"

Snape was offering him a way out. He could walk out of this classroom, and throw Harry to the abnormally large-nosed, ugly, idiotic, slim-ball git, and simply walk away. Remus looked up from the parchment and, risking the faintest of glances to Harry, did everything in his power to warn Harry not to utter a word before turning his attention to Snape.

"Full of dark magic?" he said, holding up the map and raising his eyebrows. "Do you really think so Severus? It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who reads it." He dared Snape to test him on this theory. If he wanted to make sure it insulted anyone he could try. They were not idiotic enough when they made the map all those years ago to think that no one else might get their sticky hands on it. Unless the absolute proper words were said, the map would tell Remus he was a ragged dress imbecile who thought too much of himself. "Childish, but surely not dangerous."

Childish? This map was a thing of genius and beauty. Hogwarts was unpotable, and yet four students who did not even have their OWLs had been able to plot the entire castle onto the piece of paper in his hands.

"I imagine Harry got it from a joke shop." He even pointed to the bag of Zonko's to prove his point.

"Indeed?" Snape said, his jaw now rigid, and Remus knew whatever hope he had possessed of moving on from their school-age grudge was gone. Remus had just drawn the line and dared Snape to put a toe across it. The fury in Snape's dark eyes was worse than anything Remus had ever seen in the man before.

"You think a joke shop could supply him with such a thing? You don't think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?" Every syllable in Snape's final word spit saliva onto Remus' face. He had wondered if Snape recognized the Marauders' names, and now here was the proof. How many times had he warned Prongs and Padfoot not to use them so obviously? It did not really matter now. All Remus did was smile lightly and raise his eyebrows, feigning a lack of comprehension over what Snape had just said.

"You mean by Mr. Wormtail or one of these people?" Remus looked at Harry for the first time "Harry, do you know any of these men?"

"No." Harry said, and Remus could tell he was being honest. That was a stroke of luck, even if Severus tried to use truth potion to get Harry to say something about the map, there would be no way of connecting Harry to Prongs and Prongs to Moony.

"You see Severus," he said turning back to Snape "It looks like a Zonko product to me." Then with timing that Remus could only associate with divine, or perhaps Messrs, intervention Ron came running into the office, utterly out of breath, but stopped just short of Snape's desk and tried to speak.

"I…gave…Harry... that…stuff…" He choked after trying to speak so soon after what had obviously been a sprint from Hogsmeade "Bought it… in Zonko's… ages… ago."

As a fellow troublemaker, Remus could have kissed Ron for risking more than a detention for his friend.

"Well," Remus said, doing his best to make sure his polite smile did not turn into a smirk as he clapped his hands together and looked around the room happily, "that seems to clear that up. Severus, I'll take this back shall I?" Part of him wanted Snape to just try and keep this map from one if its rightful owners, but he made no movements as Remus folded up the map and tucked it inside his robes.

"Harry, Ron? Come with me. I need a word about my vampire essay. Excuse us, Severus." Remus nodded slightly to Snape and motioned for Ron and Harry to follow him. The moment his face was hidden from all three of them, Remus's smile could no longer be contained. Had anyone else run into him, there would be no question in their minds that he had just given a flawless performance.

He made no attempt to stop or speak to Harry. He wanted to put as much distance between them and Snape as possible. When they reached the entrance hall, Harry took a few quick steps to catch up to Remus.

"Professor I—" Harry started but Remus cut him off.

"I don't want to hear explanations," he said shortly, and he absolutely did not. He had just acted in such a way that shamed his title as professor. If Snape uttered a word to any other professor about what had just happened, Remus had no illusions about still being at the school. He glanced around the hall, double checking that it was empty before saying very quietly, "I happen to know that this map was confiscated by Mr. Filtch many years ago." It was true, and if there was ever anything Moony held against Prongs it would be that. The surprised expressions on both Harry's and Ron's faces were some of the most wonderful looks Remus had seen in a very long time.

"Yes, I know it's a map." He said as both of the teenagers in front of him continued to look astonished. "I don't want to know how it fell into your possession." He absolutely did not want to know. He had a feeling Snape was not going to let this go so easily. "I am, however," and now Remus turned serious, "astounded that you didn't hand it in." He glanced over at Ron "Particularly after what happened the last time a student left information about the castle lying around, and I can't let you have it back, Harry." It killed him to say it because if this should belong to anyone, it was the son of Prongs, but with Sirius on the loose, and knowing exactly how this map worked, it was simply too dangerous to give back.

To his surprise, Harry did not argue this but rather asked,"Why did Snape think I'd got it from the manufacturers?"

"Because," but Remus hesitated. What could he say to give hints but not the whole truth? It took a lot of effort for him not to smile, but if it was ever important for him to keep a firm expression, it was now. "Because these map makers would have wanted to lure you out of school. They'd think it extremely entertaining." Not to mention a vital experience for Harry to have in order to complete his time at Hogwarts.

"Do you know them?" Harry asked, not even bothering to hide the impressed look on his face, and it was with a tinge of guilt that Remus understood that Harry was impressed not because of any clever magic but because of the rule-breaking it meant Remus must have done.

"We've met," he said shortly, not allowing himself to say anything else. Now, however, he turned very serious. If he did not get Harry to understand right now the danger he had put himself in, then he knew Harry never would.

"Don't expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously, but I would have thought that you have heard when the Dementors draw near you would have more of an effect on you." Remus hated using what Harry had confessed to him in such a backstabbing way, but it was the only sure way Remus could ensure Harry did not attempt something like this again. "Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them, gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks."

He walked away not caring if Harry never wanted to speak to him again. He meant what he had thought before in his office. Moony would happily sacrifice anything, not matter how important it was to him, to protect Harry. Prongs would be livid that he had stepped so low, but he was certain that James and Lily, wherever they were, would not hold it against him for long.

Remus entered his office and closed the door, locking it just to be sure that Snape did not try anything. He sat down at his desk and set the map on the table. The words against Snape had faded away. Remus opened up the map, drew his wand, and spoke the words that the Marauders had decided on all those years ago. He watched as their four names appeared and a perfect map of Hogwarts revealed itself. He watched as Harry and Ron met Hermione outside Gryffindor common room. He noticed that Snape was still standing in his own office and that Dumbledore had not kicked the habit of pacing around his study.

Harry's near misfortune had presented Remus with a golden opportunity. He could watch for Sirius on here. He could use the Marauder's Map against the traitor. It would not just be for Moony to get revenge of Sirius, but also for Wormtail and Prongs.


	8. Into the Rat's Nest

**Hi all! this one is a bit longer than usual, but let me know what you think! Eveythingnbelonmgs to JK Rowling.**

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Remus sat back in his chair, quite satisfied with how his students fared their exams. Fred and George had nothing to worry about for their OWL's; they seemed to be carrying on the legacy of troublemakers at Hogwarts quite well and had the smarts to pull off their many pranks. Ginny, well, she was only a second year, but given what had happened to her last year, she easily was the best in her class when it came to defensive magic. Then there were his third years. Neville would be receiving near full marks, as only the Grindylow had caused him any issue, and Ron and Hermione did well though he thought they each took the course a bit too casually for his taste. Harry on the other hand, not only finished the course in under five minutes but did not make a single mistake. He was as good at Defense Against the Dark Arts as his father had been in Transfiguration. This year, teaching at Hogwarts was the happiest Remus could remember being in a very long time.

There was a small pecking sound on his window, and Remus looked up to see an owl. Remus stood, opened the window, and removed a small scroll from its foot. He gestured to some pellets in the corner of the office as he began to read the note. It was from Hagrid. He had lost the appeal, and the ministry would be executing Buckbeak at sunset. Remus sighed. He had not been down to see Hagrid often this year. It was truly Lily who had been closest to him, but Remus had shared a cup of tea with him once or twice and asked about the photos Hagrid had requested a few years back. Hagrid, it turned out, had made a photo album of James and Lily for Harry after his first year at Hogwarts. Remus would go down to comfort Hagrid, but he needed to wait for Severus to deliver his potion. He could not help but think that Severus was waiting longer and longer every time as some sort of punishment for the fiasco with the map.

A thought occurred Remus, and he quickly pulled out the map from a desk drawer and opened it. If Hagrid had sent him a letter, surely he would have notified Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He would almost be disappointed if they did not go and comfort their friend. It was reckless of Harry, yes, but clearly the boy was smart, and with the map, Remus could keep watch and make sure the three of them stayed safe. The trio, as Remus realized quite a few of the staff called them, were currently sitting at the Gryffindor table in the hall. He watched as they did not go back up the steps to the tower, but down instead to Hagrid's, walking very closely together. Remus smiled. He did not know how Harry had come into possession of the map, nor his father's invisibility cloak, however, it seemed Harry had somehow received the two most important parts of his inheritance.

He only half watched as they sat in Hagrid's hut for nearly twenty minutes. There was no danger while they were with a Half-Giant. Even Sirius would have difficulty dealing with an angry Hagrid. Then three other people, however, started to make their way towards Hagrid's: Dumbledore, Fudge, and Macnair. Remus watched interested, as Harry snuck out the back while Hagrid welcomed Dumbledore at the front. He was impressed, and he smiled as he watched the trio begin their way back to the castle.

It took him a moment longer than it should, to recognize the difference. Perhaps it was because he was so used to seeing that specific name on the map that at first he had not noticed. When he realized, however, Remus stood suddenly, knocking his chair to the floor. There were four people heading up the castle. The map must be malfunctioning, he thought, but it couldn't be. As one of the creators, he knew that it couldn't be. If his name was showing up on this map, then there was no other explanation that Peter Pettigrew was alive.

Remus gaped at the map, watching as the four people made their way towards the castle slowly. How could Harry not know who the man was beside him? Was Peter somehow invisible as well? Then Remus watched, unable to tear his eyes away, as many things suddenly happened at once. They stopped once again. Maybe someone noticed that they were not alone? Peter began to sprint away from the trio, Ron chased after him. Harry and Hermione did not move for a moment, but then quickly chased after him as well.

Then Remus spotted another all too familiar name on the map. Sirius was close behind Harry. Remus watched as Sirius moved quickly, colliding with Harry's name for a moment before moving past…towards Peter, and then Peter, Ron and Sirius all went down the passage under the tree. It was all Remus needed to see. He ran out of his office, only taking the time to confirm that his wand was in his pocket. He did not fully understand what was going on, but Peter was alive, and he was clearly running from Sirius. Remus ignored the confused shout of a few people as he nearly ran them over in his haste. He burst through the large doors, and Moony joined Wormtail and Padfoot once again on the Hogwarts grounds.

Remus sprinted towards Hagrid's hut before pausing for a moment, trying to remember where they had run off to. He groaned. He had not brought the map. He looked around the grounds, and his eyes settled on the Whomping Willow. It was unearthly still, and both Sirius and Peter would know how to make it so. Remus ran towards the tree he had purposefully avoided all year and dove into the opening at its base. Remus stood up and lit his wand and began to follow the passage that led to his Shrieking Shack.

There were no screams or loud voices in the passage. Perhaps they had already exited it. It was narrow and for more uncomfortable as a grown man than it had been as a student here. It weaved and turned but Remus could follow it by memory if he needed to. It felt longer than he remembered, and Remus picked up his pace, trying to understand what he had seen on the map. If Sirius had not murdered Peter on that fateful day, then what had really happened?

The passage began to move upwards, and soon Remus found himself in the Shrieking Shack once again. The room was covered in a very thick layer of dust, the paper was peeling away from the walls, and the remnants of his transformations were everywhere. The walls were littered with deep scratch marks, furniture was torn into pieces, there were even spots of dark blood scattered around.

"Get out of the way!" Remus heard someone shout from somewhere upstairs. The anger in the voice, not Sirius' he noted, was immense. Remus extinguished the light on the tip of his wand.

"You never heard her did you! My mum, trying to stop Voldemort killing me! And you did that! You did it!" It was Harry, Remus realized, and he began to run up the stairs, not caring about being quiet. Sirius and Harry were in the same room. No matter what the truth really was, those two had tempers that could drive them to do something reckless.

"We're up here!" He heard Hermione shout. "We're up here! Sirius Black! Quick!"

He climbed the final steps of the stairs and could see one room, the door half open with light in it. He pointed his wand at the door, and when it burst open with red sparks, Remus launched himself into the room. He saw Ron lying on the bed clearly in pain, Hermione terrified next to the door, and Harry, whose face was murderous, point his wand at—Sirius, on the floor, so horribly thin, and bleeding slightly.

" _Expelliarmus!"_ He shouted pointing his wand at Harry. At that moment, he did not care if Sirius was guilty of everything. He did not care if Sirius had come here with the intention of killing the last Potter. Remus caught Harry's wand and the two that Hermione had been holding. He was not going to let James' son become a cold-blooded murderer.

He stepped carefully into the room, his wand still raised, and stared at Sirius. The ginger cat he had seen at the Quidditch pitch was nestled on Sirius's chest. It was quite the strange looking scenario. He met Sirius' eyes and saw the fear in them.

"Where is he, Sirius?" Remus said, making absolutely sure that his voice gave no indication as to whether he thought Sirius was guilty or not. He heard Harry turn quickly, probably staring at Remus in surprise, but he did not dare look away from Sirius. His face went blank and he did not move or say anything for a few moments. Remus was about to ask again when Sirius raised his twig thin hand and, to Remus's surprise, pointed at Ron.

Remus looked up at Ron's bewildered face. Surely, Sirius truly was mad. Then he noticed something move in Ron's hand.

"But then..." He looked back at Sirius hard and opened his mind trying to get Sirius to let him in. Sirius did not lower his mental barriers. "Why hasn't he shown himself until now?" He tried again but was still unsuccessful. For Sirius not to trust him at such a moment, he could not understand. What did Sirius have to lose? "Unless?" he murmured aloud as the realization hit him. Before James and Lily had gone into hiding, everyone had known there was a traitor. He, who spent most of his time with Voldemort's followers… it was as if everything fell together at once and he understood. "Unless he was the one! Unless you switched, without telling me?" And they wouldn't have. Not if even for a second any of them thought Remus could be the one giving information to Voldemort. He watched as Sirius nodded once.

"Professor?" Remus nearly jumped, he had forgotten that anyone else was in the room. "What's going on?" Harry said, but Remus did not pay attention. He lowered his wand from Sirius, still staring at Padfoot and never having felt so relieved in his life. He walked over to Sirius grinning widely and held out his hand, pulling him up, and embraced his brother.

"I don't believe it!" Hermione screamed, and Remus let go at once, realizing how wrong that must have looked to the three students. He turned to face her. She was now standing, a finger pointing at Remus accusingly.

"You!" She shouted "You!"

"Herminie," he tried to say, but she cut him off.

"You and him!"

"Hermione," he said again calmly, "calm down."

"I didn't tell anyone. I've been covering up for you." She looked as if she was about to go into shock, so Remus spoke more forcibly.

"Hermione, listen to me. Please!" he shouted. "I can explain."

"I trusted you!" Harry shouted, and Remus looked over at him, seeing the absolute rage and betrayal on his face. "And all the time you've been his friend!" The expression on Harry's face broke Remus's heart.

"You're wrong," Remus said, forcing himself not to shout. "I've haven't been Sirius's friend," and he moved slightly to step in front of Sirius, just in case, "but I am now. Let me explain." Something shifted in Harry's expression, but before Remus could start, Hermione cut him off.

"No!" Hermione screamed again. "Harry, don't trust him. He's been helping Black get into the castle! He wants you dead, too! He's a Werewolf."

No one spoke as Hermione's accusation echoed through the silent house. Everyone now was staring at Remus, Sirius with understanding, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione with pure hatred. He was not angry with her, but he could feel his face grow pale as Harry finally learned his deepest secret.

"Not at all up to your usual standard, Hermione," he said, smiling ruefully. "Only one out of three I'm afraid. I have not been helping Sirius get into the castle," he looked over at Harry, "and I certainly don't want Harry dead." He could not stop the shame that flowed through him as he admitted the final "but." "But I won't deny that I am a werewolf."

Harry simply stared at him, but behind him, Ron made every effort he could to get out of the bed, but it seemed his leg was broken, and all he could do was cry in pain. His concern for Ron overrode everything else momentarily, and he moved towards Ron to try and help

"Get away from me! _Werewolf!"_ Remus froze. It was the usual reaction for a wizard to make, but knowing Ron as he had, well, he could not expect everyone to be as understanding as his friends. It took considerable effort not to ignore Ron and help anyways, but Remus simply turned around and faced Hermione.

"How long have you known?" He asked though he thought he knew the answer.

"Ages," She whispered. "Since I did Professor' Snape's essay." Remus nodded and smirked despite none of this being funny.

"He'll be delighted. He assigned that essay hoping someone would realize what my symptoms meant. Did you check the lunar chart and realize that I was always ill at the full moon? Or did you realize that the Boggart changed into the moon when it saw me?"

"Both," she said softly, and Remus laughed though he noted it did not sound kind.

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione." And it was true. Even the other Marauders had not considered checking everything, they'd simply forced it out of him.

"I'm not." She seemed to take his compliment as an insult. "If I'd been a bit clever I'd have told everyone what you are!"

Remus raised his eyebrows as if this was a classroom discussion. "But they already know. At least the staff do."

"Dumbledore hired you when he knew you were a werewolf!" Ron, still clutching his leg, gasped, and for the first time, Remus was glad Harry had been raised among muggles. "Is he mad?"

"Some of the staff thought so," he said calmly. "he had to work very hard to convince certain teachers that I'm trustworthy."

"And he was wrong!" Harry yelled, and again Remus felt Harry's words as if they were silver daggers piercing his heart. "You've been helping him all the time!" He was pointing at Padfoot, who, apparently shaken as much as Remus by Harry's words, sat down on the bed and hid his face in a hand. The cat leaped up onto the bed and nuzzled onto Sirius' lap, and Ron did his best to edge away from him.

"I have not been helping Sirius. If you'll give me a chance, I'll explain." Remus said, and for the sake of Padfoot's mental health, he hoped that Harry could see through his misdirected anger; but none of them looked convinced, and Remus realized he was still holding all of their wands.

"Look," he said, separating their wands and tossing them each to their rightful owner and sticking his own into his belt. "There, you're armed, we're not," he said gesturing between Sirius and himself. "Now will you listen?"

He waited for Harry to say something, but he seemed too shocked by the sudden reunion with his wand to say anything. Remus waited.

"If you haven't been helping him," and he glared at Sirius, "how did you know he was here?"

"The map," he said, surprised that Harry had not already thought of this. "The Marauders Map! I was in my office examining it."

"You know how to work it?" Harry asked, and for the briefest of moments Remus saw the same impressed look on Harry's face that he had when he'd confiscated it.

Remus smiled, waving his hands impatiently."Of course, I know how to work it!" This was not the explanation that Harry needed. "I helped write it! I'm Moony. That was my friends' nickname for me at school." And he hoped the nod to James would help calm Harry down.

"You wrote—"

But Remus cut him off, not wanting them to focus on the map. "The important thing is I was watching it carefully this evening because I had an idea that you, Ron, and Hermione might try and sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid before his Hippogriff was executed. And I was right wasn't I?" He was now pacing, glancing at them and waiting to see if they asked any more questions, but they did not, so he continued.

"You might have been wearing your father's old cloak, Harry."

"How did you know about the cloak?"

"The number of times I saw James disappearing under it." And Remus waved his hand again, trying to get back to his explanation. "The point is, even if you're wearing an invisibility cloak you still show up on the Marauder's Map. I watched you cross the grounds and enter Hagrid's hut. Twenty minutes later you left Hagrid's and set off back towards the castle, but you were now accompanied by somebody else."

"What?" Harry said, looking blank. "No, we weren't."

But Remus nodded and continued. "I couldn't believe my eyes." He still paced back and forth on the floor, creating a path in the dust, and ignored Harry's comment. "I thought the map must be malfunctioning. How could _he_ be with you?"

"No one was with us!" said Harry, but Remus ignored him once again.

"And then I saw another dot, moving fast toward you, labeled Sirius Black. I saw him collide with you, I watched as he pulled two of you into the Whopping Willow."

"One of us!" Ron nearly shouted.

"No Ron, two of you." He stopped pacing. His eyes once again found the rat that was still desperately trying to worm its way out of Ron's hands.

"Do you think I could have a look at the rat?" he asked pointing to him, his voice less pleasant than it had been moments before.

"What?" Ron gaped at him "What's Scabbers got to do with it?"

Scabbers? An oddly fitting name for him, Remus thought "Everything. Could I see him, please?"

Ron stared at Lupin for a moment longer but then pulled the rat out, who was thrashing desperately. Ron had to hold him by the wormy tail in order to stop him from escaping. The cat still sitting on Padfoot hissed, and Lupin leaned in, not breathing and stared at his friend for the first time in many years.

"What?" Ron said again, and Remus remembered how uncomfortable Ron was with him being a Werewolf as he held Wormtail close. "What's my rat got to do with anything?"

"That's not a rat." It was the first time Sirius spoke. His voice was no longer slick and handsome sounding. It was hoarse and gruff as if it had not been used for many years. Ron looked at Sirius.

"What do you mean, of course, he's a rat."

"No, he's not," Remus said, standing and glancing at Sirius. "He's a wizard."

"An Animagus," Sirius completed for him. "By the name of Peter Pettigrew." Padfoot and Moony stared at one another, both of them nodding the others confirmation. When no one said anything, Remus glanced around to see all of them, not so much scared anymore, but very much concerned.

"You're both mental," Ron said loudly.

"Ridiculous," Hermione agreed.

"Peter Pettigrew's dead," Harry said, still glaring at Sirius. "He killed him twelve years ago!" And for a moment, Remus saw a bit of his old friend's temper reappear as he twitched from the false accusation coming from his godson.

"I meant to!" Padfoot growled looking a bit more like the dog. "But little Peter got the better of me." Sirius glared at Peter. "Not this time, though!" And Sirius stood so suddenly that the cat on his lap was thrown off and Sirius lunged at Wormtail. Ron yelped with pain as Sirius landed on his broken leg.

"Sirius no!" Remus shouted, doing his best to pull his friend away. "Wait!" he looked closely into Padfoot's eyes and tried to reason with him. "You can't do it just like that. They need to understand. We've got to explain." Remus held Sirius against a wall.

"We can explain afterward." Sirius snarled, trying to throw Moony away with one hand as he still tried to grab the rat with the other.

"They've got a right to know everything!" He could barely get the words out trying to hold Sirius back. Didn't Padfoot realize what Remus was trying to do? If Harry understood, not only would Sirius get his revenge, but he would also be able to be a Godfather. "Ron's kept him as a pet! There are parts of it even I don't understand! And Harry." The sound of his godson's name seemed to calm Sirius slightly. "You owe Harry the truth! Sirius!" Finally, Padfoot stopped struggling, though he did not look away from Peter.

"All right, then, tell them whatever you like, but make it quick, Remus, I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for." Remus let go of his friend and nodded wryly.

"You're nutters! Both of you!" said Ron, and Remus realized his hand was now bleeding. It seemed Peter was willing to try anything to escape. "I've had enough of this! I'm off!" Remus watched slightly impressed as Ron tried to heave himself off the bed, but Remus, not willing to let any of them leave until they understood, raised his wand at the rat.

"You're going to hear me out, Ron." He said, keeping his voice casual. "Just keep a tight hold on Peter while you listen."

Ron glanced at Remus' wand, still apparently not convinced "He's not Peter! He's Scabbers!" he yelled trying to force Peter back into his pocket, but Wormtail was fighting with everything he had not to. Ron swayed suddenly, and before Remus could, Harry caught his friend and set him back down on the bed, and finally Harry looked at Remus.

"There were witnesses who saw Pettigrew die." Remus was happy to hear that his voice was calming down "A whole street full of them."

"They didn't see what they thought they saw." Said Sirius savagely, his eyes still fixed on Peter.

"Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter," he said, returning the attention to himself. "I believed it myself until I saw the map tonight because the Marauders Map never lies. Peter's alive. Ron's holding him, Harry."


	9. A Werewolf's Tale

**Hi everyone! Here's the newest one. Also wanted to let you know about a new story I've put up. It's a co-author Teddy Lupin Auror story I've been working on. Hope you enjoy this one and as always everything is the property of J.K. Rowling.**

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Harry looked back at Ron, and Remus could tell that Harry did not believe them, and Remus had to admit he understood. The way that Sirius was acting, it was no surprise the Wizarding world thought him a mass murderer. Hermione spoke in a rather fake calm voice; Remus had nearly forgotten she was there.

"But, Professor Lupin, Scabbers can't be Pettigrew, it just can't be true. You know it can't," she said, and Remus appreciated that she still called him "professor."

"Why can't it be true?" he asked, deciding to act as if this were a class and that Hermione was merely pointing out something that did not make sense in the lesson.

"Because," she said, "because people would know if Peter Pettigrew had been an Animagus. We did Animagus in class with Professor McGonagall, and I looked them up when I did my homework. The ministry of Magic keeps tabs on witches and wizards who can become animals. There's a register showing what animal they become, and their markings and things. And, I went and looked Professor McGonagall up on the register and there have been only seven Animagi this century! And Pettigrew's name wasn't on the list!" she finished, and if this had been a class, Remus would have awarded her twenty points for the amount of effort she put into her assignments. But, Remus, knowing that it probably would not help his case, could not help but laugh. The fact that she never considered that someone would not register with the ministry was so naive. But then, she did not have a werewolf for a best friend.

"Right again, Hermione. But the ministry never knew that there used to be three unregistered Animagi running around Hogwarts."

Sirius rolled his eyes at Remus. "If you're going to tell them the story, get a move on, Remus." Remus only glanced at him briefly before returning his gaze to Peter. "I've waited twelve years, I'm not going to wait much longer," Sirius said, and Remus thought that it was a mark of their renewed trust that Sirius did not lunge for Wormtail once again.

"All right," he said, "but you'll need to help me, Sirius. I only know how it began." He stopped talking and glanced behind him. The bedroom door had opened suddenly. He walked towards it, wand out, and look out onto the landing. Nothing looked any different. "No one there."

"This place is haunted," Ron said, and Remus again had to do his best not to laugh.

"It's not," Remus said lightly, still looking at the door, but he did not see anything suspicious. "The shrieking shack was never haunted. The screams and howls the villagers used to hear were made by me." He noticed his voice drop slightly. He did not enjoy thinking of those lonely times. He ran his fingers through his hair and thought about how best to tell them the Marauders' tale.

"That's where all of this starts. With my becoming a werewolf. None of this could have happened if I hadn't been bitten, and if I hadn't been so foolhardy." He leaned against the wall and glanced at Harry. Now everything would be revealed, and if Harry really wanted to blame someone for his parents' deaths, he would have Remus to hate. Ron was about to say something, but Hermione shushed him.

"I was a very small boy when I received the bite. My parents tried everything, but in those days, there was no cure. The potion that Professor Snape has been making for me is a very recent discovery. It makes me safe, you see. As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform. I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again. Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully-fledged monster once a month. It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren't likely to want their children exposed to me." And he glanced at Sirius, who for all the pain that he had suffered in the past twelve years was looking at him compassionately. "But then, Dumbledore became headmaster, and he was sympathetic. He said that as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn't come to school."

Remus sighed and forced himself to look directly into Harry's green eyes. "I told you months ago, that the Whomping Willow was planted the year I came to Hogwarts. The truth is that it was planted because I came to Hogwarts. This house," He gestured around the room, glaring at every inch of it with hatred, "the tunnel that leads to it. They were built for my use. Once a month I was smuggled out of the castle, into this place, to transform. The tree was placed at the tunnel mouth to stop anyone coming across me while I was dangerous."

Remus could tell that no matter whether or not Harry thought this story was going to explain anything that happened tonight, even though he could tell that Harry was still angry, the boy was listening. Remus glanced back to the source of the squeaking and squalling in Ron's hand before continuing.

"My transformations in those days were..." he cringed in memory of them, and the scars that still littered his body, "were terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf. I was separated from humans to bite, so, I bit and scratched myself instead. The villagers heard the noise and the screaming and thought they were hearing particularly violent spirits. Dumbledore encouraged the rumor. Even now when the house has been silent for years, the villagers don't dare approach it." He smiled slightly, remembering the happier times at Hogwarts.

"But apart from my transformations, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever I had friends. Three great friends!" Remus thought he saw a glimmer of understanding in Harry's eyes and remembered his own less than stellar childhood, and then his eyes looked past Harry to Padfoot, whose frown was less severe now. "Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and of course, your father, Harry," He turned his gaze back to the green eyes. "James Potter." And he smiled at Harry.

"Now, my three friends could hardly fail to notice that I disappeared once a month. I made up all sorts of stories: I told them my mother was ill and that I had to go home to see her." Sirius almost seemed to laugh at this. "I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was. But of course they, like you, Hermione, worked out the truth. And they didn't desert me at all. Instead, they did something for me that would make my transformations, not only bearable, but the best times in my life. They became Animagi."

Ron, Hermione, and Harry stared at him, unbelieving, despite the three of them already having seen Sirius transform. "My dad too?" Harry asked.

"Yes, indeed." Remus nodded. "It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. Your father, and Sirius here," he nodded to his friend, "were the cleverest students in the school. And lucky they were, because the Animagus transformation can go horribly wrong." The guilt that he had so often felt in his youth returned. "One reason the Ministry keeps a close watch on those attempting to do it. Peter needed all the help he could get from James and Sirius." Remus glared at the rat once again and was unsurprised to see Sirius doing the same. "Finally, in our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will."

"But how did that help you?" Hermione asked puzzled, and it seemed for all the reading she did, she was still overlooking something.

"They couldn't keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals. A werewolf is only a danger to people. They sneaked out of the castle every month under James's invisibility cloak. They transformed. Peter, as the smallest, could slip beneath the Willow's attacking branches and touch the knot the freezes it. They would then slip down the tunnel and join me. Under their influence, I became less dangerous. My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so while I was with them." He did not think there was any way to make them understand how incredibly indebted he was to his friends for that. None of them had to face losing control once a month like he did. None of them ever worried that they would inflict harm on another person.

"Hurry up, Remus." Sirius said who still was staring at Peter, looking hungrier than ever, and Remus supposed that after so much time as a dog, he had probably eaten his fair share. "I'm getting there, Sirius. I'm getting there."

"Well," he continued. "Highly exciting possibilities were open to us now that we could all transform. Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds, and the village by night. Sirius and James transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check. I doubt any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did. And that's how we came to write the Marauders Map, and sign it with our nicknames."

He nodded to Sirius once again. "Sirius is Padfoot," then over to the rat, "Peter is Wormtail," and then at Harry. "James was Prongs."

"What sort of animal—" Harry started, but Hermione interrupted.

"That was still really dangerous. Running around in the dark with a werewolf. What if you'd given the others the slip and bitten somebody?"

Remus could not meet any of their eyes and so returned to looking at his feet "A thought that still haunts me. And there were near misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterward, we were young, thoughtless, carried away with our own cleverness. I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore's trust, of course. He had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other headmaster would've done so, and he had no idea I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and others safely. He never knew that I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi, illegally. But I always managed to forget my guilty feelings, every time we sat down to plan our next month's adventure, and I haven't changed."

All he could do was shrug his shoulders. He could see in Harry's face that he did not think Remus a horrible person for letting his friends do what they did. He wondered if that expression would change in a moment. Even if it did, Remus doubted Harry could hate him any more than he already hated himself.

"All this year I have been battling with myself. Wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn't do it! Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I'd betrayed his trust while I was at school. Admitting that I led others along with me, and Dumbledore's trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life. Unable to find paid work because of what I am, and so I convinced myself the Sirius was getting into the school using Dark Arts he learned from Voldemort. That being an Animagus had nothing to do with it. So, in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."

"Snape?" Sirius taking his eyes off Peter for the first time in quite a while and looking up at Remus indignantly, and Remus remembered what Mr. Padfoot of the map had said about Severus being a professor.

"He's here, Sirius." Remus said, knowing for the first time all year that someone else would feel just as uncomfortable with a former Death Eater teaching Harry as he did. "He's teaching here as well." He turned his attention back to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons, you see. Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him. A trick which involved me."

Sirius snarled. "It served him right! Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to. Hoping he could get us expelled." And Remus thought that perhaps Azkaban had not changed Sirius too much.

"Severus was very interested in where I went every month," he told them. "We were in the same year, you know, and we uh..." How did you explain to a friend's son that his father was on occasion a bit too harsh? "Didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field." Sirius cast Remus a bemused glance, knowing that what Remus had just said was not the truth.

"Anyway, Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madame Pomfrey one evening as she led me towards the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be, uh, amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it. If he'd got as far as this house he'd have met a fully grown Werewolf."

"But your father," he said to Harry, "who'd heard what Sirius had done went after Snape and pulled him back. At great risk to his own life. Snape glimpsed me though at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was."

Remus watched as realization formed over Harry's face. "So that's why Snape doesn't like you." Harry said slowly. "Because he thought you were in on the joke."

"That's right!" and everyone in the room jumped; Remus pulled out his wand, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Snape was behind him and was pulling off James's invisibility cloak his wand, pointing not at Sirius, but at Remus.

Hermione screamed, and out of the corner of his eye, Remus could see Padfoot jump to his feet, ready to attack. Severus could not have picked a worse time to reveal himself.

"I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow," Snape said as he held up James's cloak and then tossed it aside as if it were nothing more than garbage, still pointing his wand at Remus' chest. "Very useful, Potter. I thank you."

It was a true sign that both Remus and Sirius had grown as people since their school days that they did not immediately charge at Snape for the way he was smirking at Harry.

"You're wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here." Remus could recognize this as Snape's victory speech. It was a dream come true for the greasy haired git to finally catch the Marauders, complete with a Potter, doing something less than legal. "I've just been to your office, Lupin, you forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a goblet full along. And very lucky I did. Lucky for me I mean, lying on your desk was a certain map. Once glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight."

"Severus—" Remus started, hoping beyond hope that he had brought some of the potion along because he'd just realized what night it was, and of all the people in the world he did not want to be around when he transformed, every single one of them with him in this room.

"I've told the headmaster again and again that you're helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here's the proof." His words dripped with the pleasure of being able to be the one to bring Sirius in. "Not even I dreamed you'd have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout."

"Severus," he tried again "You're making a mistake. You haven't heard everything. I can explain." He felt like he was saying that phrase an awful lot tonight. "Sirius is not here to kill Harry." Not that Snape really cared, and Remus was right; he doubted Snape was going to listen to a single word he said.

"Two more for Azkaban tonight." Snape's eyes gleamed. "I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this. He was quite convinced you were harmless. You know Lupin, a tame Werewolf." If Remus had felt anger towards Snape before, it was nothing compared to what he felt now. That he would stoop so low, to use an affliction Remus had no control over, after what Snape had chosen to do during the war, Remus's vision went white with rage.

"You fool." He glared at Snape. He had just crossed the line that Remus had drawn weeks ago. As far Remus was concerned, Snape was nothing more than the cockroach that he had turned his Boggart into. "Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?"

 _BANG!_ And Remus felt himself being gagged and chained by the silver cords wound tightly around his body. It was impossible to stay standing, and he fell on the ground next to Snape's feet. He pushed and pulled against the cords, but they only cut deeper into his skin. Sirius roared, enraged, and moved towards Snape. Remus had never been more thankful for his friend to risk everything, to risk being taken back to the Dementors, just to slap Snape around for tying him up like a rabid dog. Sirius stopped suddenly, and Remus had to contort his body to look up. Snape was pointing his wand directly in the middle of Sirius' eyes.

"Give me a reason." Snape whispered loudly. "Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will." Sirius froze, both he and Remus perfectly aware that Snape had no qualms with using the killing curse. He fought against the cords again, not caring that they were making his wrists bleed. He was not going to permit Snape to take Sirius away.

"Professor Snape, i-it wouldn't hurt to hear what they've got to say w-would it?" Hermione said. If Lupin had ever questioned why she was a Gryffindor, he did not any longer, but he had no expectation that Snape would listen.

"Ms. Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school. You, Potter, and Weasley are out of bounds in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue!"

"But, i-if there was a mistake..."

"Keep quiet, you stupid girl!" Snape shouted, looking quite deranged. He might have well been back at the lake and calling Lily a mudblood, Remus thought. How Dumbledore had ever allowed him to become a teacher he did not know.

"Don't talk about what you don't understand." A few sparks shot out of the end of the greasy-haired hypocrite's wand that was still pointing at Sirius' face.

"Vengeance is very sweet," Snape said. "How I hoped I would be the one to catch you."

"The joke's on you, Severus." Remus held his breath, hoping that Sirius did not say anything to make this situation worse. "As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle, I'll come quietly."

The look on Severus's face only glowed more. Remus doubted the man had ever felt this happy. "Up to the castle?" Snape said. "I don't need to go that far. All I have to do is call the Dementors once we get out of the Willow. They'll be very pleased to see you, Black. Pleased enough to give you a little kiss, I daresay."

Remus hit Snape's leg with his own, trying anything he could to somehow knock the man off balance. Sirius paled even more if that was possible. Remus had not thought there was any color left in his friend's face.

"You've got to hear me out!" he said, and Remus could hear the fear in his friend's voice. "The rat! Look at the rat!" But Snape was not going to listen. He had not entered this house with any intention of listening. Snape had come here either to kill Sirius himself or to deliver him to the Dementors. He looked quite mad.

"Come on, all of you," he snarled at Harry and his friends, and, clicking his fingers, the ends of the cords that were binding Remus flew into Snape's hands. He was going to yank Remus like a circus freak all the way back to Hogwarts. "I'll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the Dementors will have a kiss for him too."

Remus did not care if he tore his hands off in the process, he was not going to let Snape parade him to the Dementors as any sort of monster. He watched as a new set of feet came into view, and Harry, stood, blocking Snape's path, in the center of the doorway.

"Get out of the way Potter! You're in enough trouble already. If I hadn't been here to save your skin—"

But Harry cut him off. "Professor Lupin could have killed me about a hundred times this year. I've been alone with him loads of times having Defense lessons against the Dementors. If he was helping Black, why didn't he just finish me off then?"

Remus look up at Harry and stared. He knew he had not yet said enough to be able to convince Harry of what really happened, but even still, with all of his doubts, Harry was standing up for his father's friends. And, that could be the only real reason why Harry was doing this. If he and Sirius had not been the best friends of James, Harry would have no reason to even think of believing a werewolf and mass-murderer.

"Don't ask me to fathom the way a werewolf's mind works. Get out of the way, Potter."

Harry only minutely glanced at Remus, and he could see in that moment how far Harry was willing to take this. Remus knew that no matter the cost, Harry was not going to allow Snape to take Remus and Sirius away with him. It was a look so familiar to those green eyes, Remus was surprised that Snape did not notice. After all, for years Lily had looked at James with the exact same expression when Snape was the victim.

"You're pathetic!" Harry yelled, and all Remus could do was watch. "Just because they made a fool of you at school you won't even listen!"

"Silence! I will not be spoken to like that!" Snape screamed. "Like father, like son, Potter. I have just saved your neck. You should be thanking me on bended knee. You would have been well served if he'd killed you. You'd have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black. Now, get out of the way or I will make you! Get out of the way, Potter!"

And suddenly Remus knew what was going to happen before it did. Snape did not stand a chance. He had so supremely made a fool of himself in that moment in insulting James in front of the three people who loved him most. Before Snape could do anything, Harry raised his wand and shouted: " _Expelliarmus!"_

Except it wasn't just Harry's voice, and Snape was blasted back and slammed into the wall and out of Remus's field of vision, and it seemed that both Ron and Hermione had attacked Snape as well.


	10. Wormy Wormtail

**Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling**

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"You shouldn't have done that," said Sirius whose inflection reflected the surprise that Remus felt. "You should've left him to me." Harry's silence told Remus that he was not convinced he'd made the right decision.

"We attacked a teacher!" Hermione said quietly from somewhere that Remus could not see. "Oh, we're going to be in so much trouble."

Remus was still struggling against the bonds, and Sirius bent down and quickly untied him. They looked at one another for a moment, then at Snape, who lay slumped against the wall, a bit of blood coming from an injury that Remus could not see. He did not care. Sirius helped pull him up, and Remus held his friend's shoulder and nodded his thanks. Sirius smiled grimly in return, and Lupin rubbed his wrists, trying to assess the damage, and looked past Padfoot.

"Thank you, Harry," he said.

"I'm still not saying I believe you." Harry said quickly, but Remus understood that at the very least he was willing to listen.

"Then it's time we offered you some proof," he said, and Sirius nodded. "You, boy," he said to Ron, "give me Peter, please, now." But Ron only clutched the traitor closer to his chest.

"Come off it," Ron said. "Are you trying to say he broke out of Azkaban, just to get his hands on Scabbers. I mean…" He glanced at Harry and Hermione. "Okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat, there are millions of rats. How's he supposed to know which one he's after if he was locked up in Azkaban?"

The anger and frustration Remus had been feeling moments before disappeared with Ron's question. He turned back to Sirius and raised his eyebrows and frowned slightly "You know, Sirius, that's a fair question. How did you find out where he was?"

Sirius thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled up piece of paper, and quickly smoothed it flat and held it out to show everyone. Remus stared at it. It was the photograph he had seen ages ago from when Arthur Weasley had won the lottery and taken his family on vacation. Remus looked closer at it, and on Ron's shoulder sat a very familiar looking rat. He stared at his friend absolutely astonished and took the photo from his hand.

"How did you get this?" he asked.

"Fudge." Sirius said shortly. "When he came to inspect Azkaban last year he gave me his paper, and there was Peter on the front page on this boy's shoulder. I knew him at once! How many times had I seen him transform? And, the caption said the boy would be going back to Hogwarts. To where Harry was."

Remus looked back and forth from the photo and the rat in Ron's hand, wondering how he never noticed when the article had come out.

"My god," he said, looking very closely now. "His front paw."

"What about it?" Ron asked accusingly.

"He's got a toe missing," Sirius said simply, and Remus nodded along his mind finally catching up.

"Of course," he breathed. "So simple, so brilliant. He cut it off himself."

"Just before he transformed." Sirius finished Remus' thought for him. "When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed Lily and James. Then before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back. Killed everyone within twenty feet of himself, and sped down into the sewer with the other rats."

Remus nodded, realizing now, how much more sense it made for Peter to be the traitor rather than Sirius. Somehow he felt less surprised than he had expected. "Didn't you ever hear, Ron," Remus said now staring fixity on Peter "The biggest bit of Peter they found was his finger." He could see Ron trying to justify any other reason in his head, for the rat that had slept by his side for nearly all his life not to be the man responsible for his best friend's parents deaths.

"Look, Scabbers probably had fight with another rat or something. He's been in my family for ages! Right?" Ron looked over at Harry, and Remus decided to answer the question on Harry's face.

"Twelve years in fact," Remus said. "Didn't you ever wonder why he was living so long?"

And there it was, they were getting through to them finally. Harry was questioning it, Hermione was looking at the facts, and Ron was beginning to run out of defenses. "We've been taking good care of him," said Ron.

"Not looking too good at the moment, though, is he? I'd guess he's been losing weight ever since he heard Sirius was on the loose again."

"He's been scared of that mad cat!" Ron said, nodding towards the ginger cat who was still on the bed.

"This cat isn't mad!" Sirius said as he scratched the cat's head. Remus smiled. It would be Padfoot to, despite the desperate situation they were in, defend the honor of a cat. "He's the most intelligent of his kind I've ever met. He recognized Peter for what he was right away, and when he met me? He knew I was no dog! It was a while before he trusted me. Finally, I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he's been helping me."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, looking at the cat as if it had somehow personally hurt her.

"He tried to bring Peter to me but couldn't, so he stole the password to Gryffindor tower for me. As I understand it, he took them from a boy's bedside table." Sirius said.

Remus sighed, remembering that night and how much trouble Neville had gotten in.

"But Peter got wind of what was going on and ran for it," Sirius continued. "This cat, Crookshanks did you call him? Told me Peter had left blood on the sheets. I suppose he bit himself. Well, faking his own death had worked once."

Something flashed in Harry's eyes and he glared at Sirius once again "And why did he fake his death? Because he knew you were about to kill him. Like you killed my parents!"

"No." Remus said, stepping forward, careful to keep his hands visible "Harry—"

"And now you've come to finish him off!" Harry nearly shouted.

"Yes. I have," said Sirius with fire and Remus looked at his friend indignantly, but Sirius only had eyes for Peter.

"Then I should've let Snape take you!" Harry shouted and Remus sighed.

"Harry, don't you see, all this time we've thought Sirius betrayed your parents, and Peter tracked him down, but it was the other way around! Don't you see? Peter betrayed your mother and father. Sirius tracked Peter down," Remus said hurriedly.

"That's not true!" Harry yelled and pointed a finger at Sirius "He was their secret keeper! He said so before you turned. He said he killed them."

Remus looked at Sirius, who shook his head slowly. His eyes were glistening. "Harry, I as good as killed them. I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment. Persuaded them to use him as secret keeper instead of me." Sirius looked quite beside himself as he continued speaking "I'm to blame, I know it. The night they died, I'd arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he'd gone. Yet, there was no sign of a struggle. It didn't feel right. I was scared, I set out for your parent's house straight away, and when I saw their house destroyed and their bodies, I realized what Peter must have done. What I'd done."

His voice broke and refused to look at Remus or Harry. He felt no anger towards Sirius, instead shared his grief and guilt.

"Enough of this," Remus said, and he kept his voice flat and emotionless as he stared at the rat. "There's one certain way to prove what really happened. Ron, give me that rat!" The time for talking about Peter was over. He was done trying to convince them of the truth. Peter could tell it to them himself before he died.

"What are you going to do if I give him to you?" Remus could not believe how protective a boy could be about such a creature, and he spoke rather tersely.

"Force him to show himself," he said, and then added when he saw Ron's face, "If he really is a rat it won't hurt him." If Ron did not hand over Peter, Remus was going to stun him and take the traitor from his unconscious hands, but finally, Ron handed Peter over. Peter began to twitch all over, and Remus only squeezed harder. His small beady eyes bulged.

"Ready, Sirius?" Remus asked over his shoulder.

"Together," Sirius said, pointing Snape's wand at Peter.

"I think so." Remus glanced at Padfoot and smiled before turning his attention back to Peter. "On the count of three. One, two, three!" And then they were blinded by a flash of blue light, and Remus slowly watched as Peter frozen in the air slowly transformed from a rat to a human.

He was much thinner than Remus remembered, but he supposed that being terrified that the very friends you betrayed were coming to kill you could do that to a person.

"Well, hello, Peter!" Remus said as if they had run into one another randomly on the street or at a class reunion. He rocked back and forth on his heels staring at that the ragged, balding man he had once thought a dear friend. "Long time, no see." He smiled wryly.

"S-Sirius, R-Remus!" Peter's squeaking voice stuttered as he glanced at the two of them before at the door. "My friends, my old friends!"

Sirius's wand rose suddenly, but Remus grabbed him around the wrist and looked at him seriously before turning his attention to Peter. He smirked and kept his voice just as light and casual as he had in Snape's office.

"We've been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died. You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed."

"Remus," Peter stared at him with fear in his eyes that Remus had never imagined seeing in a friend's face. The problem was, and he was sure Peter knew this, that he only ever acted this pleasantly when he knew the battle was already over, just like he had with Snape. It was how he often gloated.

"You don't believe him, do you?" And Remus gave him a pitying look. This would be so much easier if Peter did not beg or try to worm his way out of the situation, surely he knew that. "He tried to kill me, Remus."

"So we've heard." He said his voice losing some of its cheeriness. "I'd like to clear up one or two little matters with you Peter. If you'd be so—"

"He's come to try and kill me again!" Peter shouted, and the smile on Remus's face grew strained as he pointed at Sirius with his middle finger.

"He killed Lily and James, and now he's going to kill me too! You've got to help me, Remus!" How could Peter not understand that they both were going to kill him the moment they heard the whole story? Remus glanced over at Sirius and saw that his face had gone stone cold.

"No one's going to try and kill you until we've sorted a few things out," Remus continued, but his smile had vanished.

"Sorted things out!" Peter squeaked and his voice was so high that it made Remus flinch and his ears hurt. The rat finally seemed to realize that this was no trial, but rather a sentencing. There was no way around the fact that Peter was going to die tonight. But, Remus and Sirius were not so heartless as to not at least try to determine whether it should be painless or not. Again his eyes darted to every possible exit, but there was no way Peter had forgotten that it was Dumbledore who had enchanted them to never open.

"I knew he'd come after me! I knew he'd be back for me. I've been waiting for this for twelve years!" Remus did not even try to hide the disappointment in his face.

"You knew Sirius was going to try and break out of Azkaban?" Really, Peter, he knew the rat was clever, and surely he could do better than that. He furrowed his brow. "When nobody has ever done it before?"

"He's got dark powers the rest of us can only dream of!" Peter shouted "How else did he get out of there? I suppose He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a few tricks."

Sirius laughed, and it was not his usual hearty laugh but something rather cold that lacked any possible chance of mercy. It echoed around the shack.

"Voldemort teach me tricks?" he shook his head at Peter as Wormtail flinched at the name. "What? Scared to hear your old master's name? I don't blame you, Peter. His lot aren't very happy with you, are they?"

If possible it seemed that Peter lost five more pounds for the amount he shrank. "Don't know what you mean, Sirius." Remus jerked his head, trying to stop the shrill voice from piercing his ears. He could smell the rank that Peter was perspiring in fear. He could hear Peter's breathing quicken, and Remus got the impression that he and Sirius were dogs playing with their food before devouring it.

"You haven't been hiding from me for twelve years." It seemed the only person to whom this fact was not obvious was Peter himself "You've been hiding from Voldemort's old supporters. I heard things in Azkaban, Peter. They all think you're dead, or you'd have to answer to them." Peter shuddered at the very thought of being held accountable for his actions, and it was with a small sigh that it became clear that even though it was his friends pointing wands at him, Peter was more afraid of the Death Eaters. The lump truly did not understand his situation.

"I've heard them screaming all sorts of things in their sleep. It sounds like they think the double-crosser double-crossed them. Voldemort went to the Potters on your information, and Voldemort met his downfall there, and not all Voldemort's supporters ended up in Azkaban, did they? There are still plenty out here, biding their time, pretending they've seen the error of their ways."

Remus's eyes flicked over the Snape, and he thought of the Malfoy boy back up at the castle.

"If they ever got wind that you were still alive, Peter..." Sirius let the implications go unsaid, and Peter sank to the floor in fear.

"Don't know what you talking about" He wiped his face on his filthy sleeve and Remus decided he would give credit where it was due. At the very least Peter was doing the very best to stick to his story, even after they had disproved it. He looked into Remus' eyes.

"You don't believe this? This madness? Remus?" And Moony looked at Wormtail, realizing that he had never seen anything more pitiful.

"I must admit, Peter, I have difficulty in understanding why an innocent man would want to spend twelve years as a rat." His voice was no longer pleasant, and at most it was flat, but he did not care. He knew they were only minutes away from avenging Lily and James.

"Innocent, but scared!" Peter said almost sincerely. "If Voldemort's supporters were after me, it was because I put one of their best men in Azkaban. The spy! Sirius Black!" Personally, Remus thought Peter went a touch too dramatic, but Sirius did not disappoint in his response.

"How dare you," he growled "I? A spy for Voldemort? When did I ever sneak around people who were stronger and more powerful than myself? But you, Peter! I'll never understand why I didn't see you were the spy from the start!" Remus now realized this was why his mind could accept Peter as the spy so quickly when it had never been able to do so with Sirius. Their natures were opposites. Sirius always wanted to do things his way, and Peter only ever did what people told him to do.

"You always liked big friends who'd look after you, didn't you? It used to be us! Me, and Remus, and James." Sirius hit his own heart and pointed to Remus. He even gestured to his other side as if James were somehow still here. Peter could hardly breathe, Remus noticed. He looked as if he was going to pass out from hyperventilating.

"Me? Spy? Must be out of your mind! Never! Don't know how you can say such a thing!" Peter once again squealed, but Remus could see the façade slowly slipping away.

"Lily and James only made you secret keeper because I suggested it!" Sirius nearly threw the words at Peter, and Peter took a step back. "I thought it was the perfect plan, a bluff. Voldemort was sure to come after me, would never dream that they'd use a weak, talentless, thing like you. It must have been the finest moment of your miserable life, telling Voldemort you could hand him the Potters."

It seemed Sirius had finally reduced Peter to the disgusting glob of goop he deserved to be. He could only hear random words in the muttering of the rat, and none of them held any value to Remus's ears. The only thing that seemed important was that Peter still kept looking at the door every few seconds.


	11. The Marauder's End

**Almost done! just one more after this.**

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"Professor Lupin?" Hermione said, and Remus looked up slightly surprised to see that she, Ron, and Harry were still there. He had completely forgotten that it was not just the Marauders in the Shrieking Shack.

"Can-can I say something?" It as was if she thought this was a classroom, but he said, without looking away from Peter, "Certainly, Hermione," and he was surprised to hear how polite his voice sounded.

"Well, Scabbers—I mean, this-this man, he's been sleeping in Harry's dormitory for three years. If he's working for You-Know-Who, how come he never tried to hurt Harry before now?" she asked.

"There!" said Peter and he pointed to Ron "Thank you! You see, Remus, I have never hurt a hair of Harry's head. Why should I?" He opened his mouth to give an answer, but Sirius beat him to it.

"I'll tell you why. Because you never did anything for anyone unless you could see what was in it for you. Voldemort's been hiding for fifteen years; they say he's half dead. You weren't about commit murder right under Albus Dumbledore's nose for a wreck of a wizard who'd lost all his power, were you? You'd want to be quite sure he was the biggest bully in the playground before you went back to him wouldn't you? Why else did you find a wizard family to take you in? Keeping an ear out for news, weren't you, Peter? Just in case your old protector gained strength, and it was safe to rejoin him."

Peter opened his mouth and closed it repeatedly. Finally, Remus thought, he was going to stop talking in the squeaking little voice of his.

"Ah, Mr. Black, Sirius," and Padfoot jumped, and Remus stared at Hermione attempting to talk to Sirius in such a polite way. Sirius' face, Remus could admit even in this tense situation, was hilarious as he looked at Hermione as if there was nothing quite like her.

"If you don't mind me asking," she continued as if she had not noticed his reaction. "How, how did you get out of Azkaban if you didn't use dark magic."

"Thank you," Peter said, nodding at Hermione, and Remus wished that she would stop asking questions that extended this whole scenario. "Exactly, preciously what I—" But Peter thankfully stopped talking with the look Remus gave him.

"I don't know how I did it," Sirius said, and Remus wanted to tell his friend that this was not the time to decide to be modest.

"I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn't a happy thought, so the Dementors couldn't suck it out of me, but it kept me sane and knowing who I am. Helped me keep my powers, so when it all became too much, I could transform in my cell, become a dog. Dementors can't see, you know."

Sirius swallowed hard, and Remus thoughtfully realized what twelve years next to such foul creatures had turned his friend into. "They feel their way toward people by feeding off their emotions. They could tell that my feelings were less, less human when I was a dog, but they thought of course, I was losing my mind like everyone else in there so it didn't trouble them. But I was weak, very weak, and I had no hope of driving them away from me without a wand. But then, I saw Peter in that picture. I realized he was at Hogwarts with Harry. Perfectly positioned to act if one hint reached his ears that the dark side was gathering strength again."

Remus watched as Sirius chanced a quick glance at Harry, but his godson was too focused on Peter, who was shaking terribly and staring at Sirius who continued talking.

"Ready to strike at the moment he could be sure of allies, and to deliver the last Potter to them. If he gave them Harry, who'd dare say he'd betrayed lord Voldemort? He'd be welcomed back with honors. So, you see, I had to do something. I was the only one who knew Peter was still alive."

Remus hated that Sirius had had to go through all of that alone, simply to ensure Harry's safety. He hated himself even more, knowing that if Sirius had tried to contact him, he would have turned him over without a second thought.

"It was as if someone had lit a fire in my head, and the Dementors couldn't destroy it. It wasn't a happy feeling, it was an obsession, but it gave me strength, it cleared my mind. So one night, when they opened my door to bring food, I slipped passed them as a dog. It's so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused. I was thin, very thin, thin enough to slip through the bars. I swam as a dog back to the mainland. I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I've been living in the forest ever since. Except when I came to watch the Quidditch match, of course."

Now Sirius and Harry's eyes met, and Harry did not look away. "You fly as well as your father did, Harry. Believe me," Sirius croaked. "Believe me, Harry, I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them."

Remus almost smiled at how Harry's expression turned from suspicion to acknowledgment. He did not say anything, but nodded at Sirius, and now Remus know there was only one last thing for them to do.

"No!" Peter shouted, and Remus knew he had seen the understanding pass between Harry and Sirius. He knew that if Harry believed, there was no chance to convince anyone else. The battle had never been one that Peter could win, but finally, at long last, Wormtail understood that. Peter fell to his knees, ready for the axe to fall. He groveled, clasping his hands towards Padfoot.

"Sirius! It's me! It's Peter! Your friend! You wouldn't!" Sirius kicked out, and Peter recoiled. He had just stumbled onto the biggest problem with this whole situation. It was because it was him, Peter, their friend, that they would.

"There's enough filth on my robes without you touching them." Sirius said, and then Peter turned to Remus.

"Remus! You don't believe this! Wouldn't Sirius have told you they changed the plan?" Remus looked down at him. Peter made no attempt to try and touch him.

"Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter." And he looked to Sirius, feeling absolutely no anger towards him. "I assume that's why you didn't tell me, Sirius?"

Sirius nodded "Forgive me, Remus?"

Remus smiled. "Not at all, Padfoot, old friend." And with everything settled and known, Remus rolled up his sleeves. "And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing you were the spy?" he asked.

"Or course!" And there was a small smile on Padfoot's face as he, too, rolled up his sleeves. "Shall we kill him together?" he asked.

"Yes," Remus said lightly. "I think so." And both of them pointed their wands at Peter.

"You wouldn't! You won't!" Peter gasped, and if this was what Peter truly believed, Remus thought, then he had never really known his friends at all. Peter scrambled over to Ron. "Ron! Haven't I been a good friend? A good pet? You won't let them kill me, Ron! Will you? You're on my side aren't you!"

But the battle was long over, Ron could not even look at Peter in the eye. "I let you sleep in my bed!" Ron said, looking slightly nauseous.

"Kind boy, kind master," and Peter crawled towards Ron. "You won't let them do it! I was your rat! I was a good pet!"

Remus actually laughed at this as Sirius spoke. "If you made a better rat than a human, it's not much to boast about, Peter." Ron wrenched his broken leg out of Peter's fingers. Seeming to know that Ron was not going to help, Peter scampered over to Hermione and seized the bottom of her robes.

"Sweet girl, clever girl, you, you won't let them? Help me!" Hermione pulled her robes out of Peter's hands, although Peter seemed to want to use them as a handkerchief. Peter knelt and then slowly turned towards Harry, causing Remus' blood to boil.

"Harry, Harry!" he cried the name of the son of the man he gave to Voldemort. The man who died rather than join as Peter had done. "You look just like your father, just like him," Peter said, and Sirius spat.

"How dare you speak to Harry!" he roared. "How dare you face him! How dare you talk about James in front of him!"

"Harry!" Peter continued, ignoring Padfoot's warning "Harry! James wouldn't have wanted me killed! James would have understood, Harry! He would have shown me mercy." Both Remus and Sirius grabbed Peter away from Harry at the gall that he must have to say that James would have understood. That James would not be acting exactly as they were if Peter had betrayed Padfoot or Moony instead of Prongs. They threw him backward onto the floor and pointed their wands as him, happily watching him twitch and writhe in fear.

"You sold James and Lily to Voldemort," Sirius said coldly. "Do you deny it?"

And then in that moment, when Peter burst into tears, Remus felt ashamed that he had ever considered Peter a friend. He cowered when he should stand straight, he surrendered rather than fight. He would rather say anything to anyone than die with honor.

"Sirius, Sirius! What could I have done! The Dark Lord! You have no idea. He has weapons you can't imagine! I was scared, Sirius. I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me!"

Sirius was shaking with anger, but Remus was perfectly calm. "Don't lie," Sirius shouted. "You'd been passing information to him for a year before Lily and James died! You were his spy!"

Peter looked back and forth at both of them, and Remus did not know what he thought he would find to help him. There would be no sympathy. They were not going to say that they understood and forgave him.

"He was taking over everywhere! Wha-what was there to be gained by refusing him?" Peter practically sobbed, and at last, the truth came out of his mouth. This was what Remus had wanted all along. He knew Peter did not turn because he believed the propaganda Voldemort said or because he secretly hated James; it was because he wanted to make sure that at the end of the war his fat bottom would still be around.

"What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed?" Sirius slung Peters words back at him. "Only innocent lives, Peter."

"You don't understand!" Peter whinnied. "He would have killed me, Sirius." But they did understand. They understood all too well.

"Then you should have died," Sirius roared. "Died rather than betray your friends. As we would have done for you."

Together Sirius and Remus stood, shoulder to shoulder, so disappointed that they would ever have valued Peter's lives about theirs. Their wands were raised, they knew the spell. It would be the same one that took James and Lily from this world.

"You should have realized," he said quietly, so differently from Padfoot, "If Voldemort didn't kill you, we would."

He stared at Peter one second more, appreciated that there were three Marauders, with the son of the fourth standing in the Shrieking Shack one last time. "Goodbye, Peter," he said and opened his mouth to utter the deadly spell.

"No!" someone shouted, and Harry darted in front of his and Sirius' wands using his body, reminding Remus of how Harry had described James facing Voldemort. "You can't kill him." And Lily's green eyes looked hard into Remus. "You can't."

Remus staggered, and he saw Sirius lower his wand instantly as he said, "Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason you have no parents. This cringing bit of filth would have seen you die too without turning a hair! You heard him. His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family."

"I know," Harry replied, and Remus still only looked at him curiously. "We'll take him up to the castle. We'll hand him over to the Dementors. He can go to Azkaban," Harry's eyes looked back at Remus. They were wide with pleading. "But don't kill him." Remus continued to look at the green eyes, his face expressionless.

"Harry!" Peter said from the floor, and both Remus and Sirius lifted their wands once again as Peter embraced Harry's legs. "You! Thank you! It's more than I deserve! Thank you!"

"Get off me!" Harry spat, and he shook Peter off of his legs. "I'm not doing this for you! I'm doing it because," and again he looked at Remus and Sirius together, "I don't reckon my dad would have wanted them to become killers, just for you."

Sirius and Remus looked at one another, and no one moved. Remus still only could stare at Harry, seeing him in a way that he never had before. The moment that he had discovered the truth, he had never once considered what James would have wanted for them. James would know that Peter should die, he would have even wanted it, but now, with Harry being given the opportunity to know two of his father's best friends, Remus had to admit that Harry was right. Prongs wound not want Padfoot and Moony to stoop to Peter's level. He would not want them to kill Peter in front of his son. Together, having reached the same silent conclusion, he and Sirius lowered their wands.

"You're the only person who has the right to decide, Harry," Sirius said, shifting his gaze to his godson. "But think, think what he did."

"He can go to Azkaban," Harry repeated. "If anyone deserves that place, he does."

Remus nodded his head slowly and ignored the whimpers of Peter behind Harry. "Very well," he said. "Stand aside, Harry." Harry looked at him, and Remus realized that perhaps the calm in his voice disturbed him.

"I'm going to tie him up," Remus explained. "That's all. I swear." And Harry stepped out of the way. Remus conjured thin cords and made sure to bind them extremely tightly. He had said he would not kill Peter, but that did not mean he could not cause him a bit of pain. He gagged him, both for good measure and so that his ears did not have to be in pain from the high-pitched voice.

"But if you transform, Peter," Sirius said, bending down and poking Peter's forehead with his wand. "We will kill you." He looked up. "You agree, Harry?"

Harry nodded.

"Right," Remus said, and he looked around the room to see how Hermione and Ron were faring. "Ron, I can't mend bones nearly as well as Madame Pomphrey, so I think it's best if we just strap your leg up until we can get you to the hospital wing." He walked over to Ron and smiled at him as he tapped Ron's leg with his wand and muttered, " _Ferula."_ Bandages wrapped around the leg tightly to a splint, and Remus helped Ron to his feet. He waited for Ron to try and put weight on it and was satisfied when he did not wince.

"That's better," Ron said. "Thanks."

'What about Professor Snape?" Hermione asked in a very small voice, looking over to the unconscious Potions Master. Personally, Remus would have been happy to leave him where he was, but he looked at Hermione and knew that this was not an option.

"There's nothing seriously wrong with him," Remus said, a bit disappointed as he checked Snape's pulse. "You were just a little over enthusiastic. Still out cold" He looked around at Sirius and smiled "Ah, perhaps it will be best if we don't revive him until we're safely back in the castle. We can take him like this."

Remus pointed his wand at Snape and said, " _Mobilcorpus!"_ and he watched as Snape was pulled into the air and stood like a puppet ready to be controlled. He bobbed only a few inches above the ground, and Remus found himself quite satisfied with the image. He then picked up James's cloak, folded it neatly, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"And two of us should be chained to this," Sirius said, kicking the bound form of Peter. "Just to make sure".

"I'll do it," Remus said, walking over to where Peter lay, still squirming. He wondered if Harry would judge him too much if he knocked the traitor out.

"And me," said Ron, much to Remus' surprise. He watched how Ron glared at Peter and decided that if he found out his faithful pet had turned out to be a good for nothing traitor who sold his friends to Voldemort, he would probably hold a bit of a grudge against this former pet, too.

Sirius conjured chains with his wand and glanced at Remus for a moment, but he nodded to Padfoot. He was not fond of being chained up in any way if it meant Peter got what he deserved. He would tolerate it for the short journey it would be. Sirius got to work and chained Remus' left arm to Peter's right and Ron's right arm to Peter's left.

Then with Crookshanks leading the way, the slightly strange victory parade set off back into the passage and towards Hogwarts.


	12. Moony's Goodbye

**Thanks, everyone who took an interest in this! Sadly, this is the final chapter, but I've considered the idea of doing some parts of OotP and the other books that Remus pops up in. So keep an eye out for that story!**

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Remus left the Headmaster's office feeling far more at ease than he had expected. He appreciated that Dumbledore did not try and convince him to stay. Last night's slip up could have gone a lot worse, and he would never forgive himself if he'd given his affliction to one of his students. He took his time walking back to his office. Remus did not know the next time he would be here and wanted to enjoy it while he still could. He turned the corner of a corridor and saw a group of students, who stopped talking and watched slowly as he walked past them. He smiled and they jumped back. The smile disappeared as he passed them. Remus supposed it was too much to ask Snape not to retaliate after the events of last night. Telling his students what Remus really was, did not upset him. Nothing, now that he knew the truth, knew that Sirius was on their side, could anger him.

He supposed that would come later. It certainly would be difficult to find another job, and he had no hope of finding something as decent as this again. Snape, while maybe an ally against Voldemort, still was a petty child who did not mind ruining someone else's life. He would have given Sirius to the Dementors, cursed Harry, and dragged him into the castle, bound, just to get revenge. Remus supposed he should be impressed that Snape had held out this long. Remus opened the door to his office and began the processes of packing.

There was not much to pack. Used to being thrown out of places and never having much money to spend made one a fairly light traveler. With a wave of his wand, the few clothes he owned were neatly folded in his trunk. Remus quickly separated out his books from the many he had borrowed from the library and set them on top of his robes. He had already returned the Grindylow to the black lake and emptied the tank. Now all there was to do was wait for his carriage to arrive.

Remus sat in his chair and watched the map. With exams done, most of the students were enjoying the sunshine and freedom the end of term provided. Dumbledore had revealed the events of last night to him earlier, and it was with a bitter heart that he knew he would not find Peter's name again. For all of his rat-ish tendencies, Peter was very clever. Clever enough to be a Marauder, to help make this map, and apparently to fool the entire wizardry world.

They should have killed him. Wherever Sirius was, Remus was sure he was thinking the same thing. With his body, Sirius would be cleared of the charges. They may have been arrested for murder, but the sentence would not have been long. He doubted the Wizengamot would think too harshly of killing the traitor responsible for the Potters' deaths. Especially when they were such close friends, but it was too late now. There was nothing to be done except respect Harry's decision. The consequences for not taking his potion were his to bear alone, and he hoped that Harry would not blame himself. Choosing to be merciful should not be seen as a bad decision. At the very least, despite everything else, at least Harry now knew the truth.

He smiled and watched as Harry hurried up the steps from Hagrid. To the half-giant's credit, he did not seem bothered that Remus was a werewolf. His only concern this morning had been for Buckbeak and whether a Hippogriff made a good dinner for a transformed werewolf. While Remus did not remember much after saying, "One wrong move, Peter," and then the moon revealing itself, he was sure he had not eaten anything. If he had, there would be blood, not to mention he would not have felt starved. Remus smiled; he could tell that Harry was hurriedly heading this way. He continued to watch the map, not wanting to take his eyes off of the thing until the last moment, when Harry knocked on his door.

"I saw you coming," he said and pointed to the map.

"I just saw Hagrid, and he said you'd resigned! It's not true is it?" Harry said, and Remus wondered that if Harry asked him, if he said the words out loud, if Remus would change his mind. While he would miss teaching, and his access to the potion, the thing he would miss the most about Hogwarts would be getting to know James' son.

"I'm afraid it is," he said and opened his desk drawers taking out the few contents. They were small things - a few quills, a bottle of ink, and a bit of chocolate meant for Harry's Patronus lessons. Something that, if what he thought was true, Harry would no longer need.

"Why?" Harry asked. "The ministry of magic don't think you were helping Sirius, do they?"

The fact that Harry worried that it was his relationship with Sirius that had caused him to leave and nothing else released all the tension in Remus' shoulders. He did not care what anyone else in this school thought about him so long as Harry did not mind his "furry little problem." Remus crossed the room, past Harry, and closed the door. He did not expect anyone else to come and say goodbye, but if Snape was listening in, trying to find evidence to have Remus arrested, he was not going to make it so easy.

"No," he said, turning to Harry. "Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives." And Remus supposed that technically speaking, it was true. "That was the final straw for Severus, I think the loss of the Order of Merlin hit him hard." Remus shook his head. Watching Snape's face fall when he learned that because Remus had gotten there first, that he would not be given the honor, had almost been worth everything. He had noticed that Fudge did not try to give the honor to him, but he had not expected it. No one would believe that a werewolf who was friends with Sirius could really have been looking out for the best interests of three teenagers.

"So he, ah," and wondering if he should say this, but as he was no longer a professor and Harry's life was likely to get more complicated after attacking Snape, Remus did not see the harm, "accidently let slip that I am a werewolf this morning at breakfast."

Shock showed on Harry's face as he said, "You're not leaving just because of that!" and Remus smiled wryly. He truly appreciated that Harry did not mind his condition, but there was no possible way for him to remain now that it was out in the open. Dumbledore would already be criticized and yelled at for hiring him in the first place. If Dumbledore fought for Remus to stay, and he knew he would, Hogwarts could lose its headmaster, and Remus was not willing to let that happen. The wizarding world did not see him as a human. They only cared about the one night a month in which he was not.

"This time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving from parents. They will not want a werewolf teaching their children, Harry," he said and then recalled the other, far more important reason as to why, even if Harry wanted him to stay, Remus had to leave. "And after last night, I see their point. I could have bitten any of you! That must never happen again."

It was the first thing he had thought of when he'd woken in the forest. He'd been chained to Peter and Ron. He'd been so very close to them when he'd transformed. It was a small miracle that none of them were infected or dead, and he had no illusions about what would have happened had Sirius not been there. Sirius had again performed his duty as Padfoot, protecting everyone from Moony.

"You're the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've ever had. Don't go!" Harry said, and there it was, Remus thought. The one request from the one person who could tempt him into staying. But the sad fact was that Harry was better off at Hogwarts without him. Nothing Remus could teach would ever overcome the possible risk of hurting James' son. Remus had proven that when last night, he'd been so wrapped up in everything that happened that not once, but twice Remus had forgotten all about his condition. There was no excuse for such a mistake. Afraid that he would relent if he spoke, Remus simply shook his head and finished emptying his drawers.

"From what the headmaster told me this morning, you saved a lot of lives last night, Harry. If I'm proud of anything I've done this year, it's how much you've learned. Tell me about your Patronus," he said and saw the surprise on Harry's face.

"How do you know about that?" Harry asked.

"What else could have driven the Dementors back?" Obviously, Dumbledore had not mentioned it, because Harry was the only one who had been at the lake. Even if he wasn't, he doubted many other people on the grounds knew how, or had the potential to create such a strong Patronus. Remus listened, never more proud of his student, as Harry explained the entire situation. How at first he could barely make more than a shield. How the Dementor had tried to kiss him before Sirius and how at first Harry had thought he'd seen James. Considering that a different Marauder had come back from the dead that night, Remus was not surprised for such a hope to linger. He wished he could have been there to watch Harry cast Prongs from his wand, to see the stag rush the many Dementors and drive them away. All Remus could do was grin with pride.

"Yes, your father was always a stag when he transformed. You guessed right. That's why we called him Prongs," Remus said. Well, that and the fact that when James had transformed for the very first time, he had purposefully poked Sirius in the back with his antlers for nearly ten minutes. It was how the nicknames began, and it was only a few weeks later when Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs became cemented.

Remus threw the last books he'd found in the doors into his trunk, closed it, and shut all of the drawers. He pulled the invisibility cloak out of his pocket. "Here, I brought this from the Shrieking Shack last night." He handed Harry back James' cloak

"And," Remus said, but he glanced down at the map one more time before deciding that it did not really belong to him any longer. It was time for the next generation to take over from the Marauders. He wiped it clean, saying the words probably for the last time, and held out the map to Harry. "I am no longer your teacher, so I don't feel guilty about giving you back this as well. It's no use to me, and I daresay you and Ron and Hermione will find uses for it." Harry took the map and smiled. Remus was sure that Harry already had many plans for the map.

"You told me Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, would've wanted to lure me out of school. You said they would have thought it was funny," he said, and Remus nodded.

"And so we have," Remus said and reached down to pick up his trunk. "I have no hesitation in saying that James would have been highly disappointed if his son had never found any of the secret passages out of the castle."

Harry opened his mouth to say something more, but there was a knock on the door, and Remus watched as Harry quickly hid both the map and cloak in his robes. Remus opened to door to find Dumbledore. He glanced at Harry and gave Remus a knowing look with his twinkling eyes, but did not mention Harry's presence.

"Your carriage is at the gates, Remus." And Remus could tell that Dumbledore, despite everything Remus had confessed to him, was sad to see him go.

"Thank you, Headmaster," Remus said, picking up his briefcase and the Grindylow tank before turning back to Harry one last time.

"Well, goodbye, Harry!" he said, smiling. "It has been a real pleasure teaching you. I feel sure we'll meet again sometime." And it was true. Sirius may not be able to be Harry's godfather due to Remus's foolishness, but that did not mean that Harry could not have the chance to get to know his father's old friends. Remus would make sure of that.

He turned back to Dumbledore. "Headmaster, there is no need to see me to the gates. I can manage." He did not want to dawdle now that the goodbyes were said, and he did not want Dumbledore to make excuses for him in an attempt to get him to stay.

"Goodbye then, Remus," Dumbledore said, and to Remus's surprise, held out his hand. He repositioned the tank under his arm in order to shake it. He gave a final nod to Harry, and he left the office.

He took the most direct route to the gates, not wanting to see the scared or horrified faces of his students. Remus wanted to be able to believe, even if he knew it was foolish, that most would feel as Harry did. There were those, such as Malfoy, who would never even try to see Remus as anything else than a monster, but there were also the Hermiones and Rons, who, while initially cautious, had learned that a werewolf was not the only thing Remus was.

Dumbledore was true to his word, and a Thestral waited for him at the gate. He quickly loaded his trunk onto the back and stepped inside. This time, he would not be taking the train back to London. Instead, he would settle for a quiet bite at the Three Broomsticks before apparating. Remus watched as the castle slowly shrined away and was eventually hidden by the forest. He closed his eyes, thinking he might just have enough time for a nap when an owl fluttered through the window. He stared at it for a moment, and it pecked at his finger, impatient for him to take the letter.

Remus untied the letter from the owl's leg, and it flew off back into the sunny sky. As he unrolled it, he recognized the handwriting immediately. It would be Padfoot who risked recapture to make sure that he was all right after a rough full moon. He knew Sirius and he would not be able to meet up for quite some time. Not until the Ministry got used to the idea that a mass murderer was on the loose and things quieted down a little, but he would not be surprised to see a large black dog show up on his doorstep soon.


End file.
